Attempts to make my bed 
and stop waking up on fire.
1.
I've drilled my body to wake up before 
the spiders and before the sun.
2.
I make my bed but it comes undone.
Un-click my seat belts and un-do the spider mother's
knitting quits they make
for their dead children--
3.
If I'm not careful I'll wake up with
my hair on fire- fire like birds
exploding from the roof and throwing
their babies like missiles-- like fire bombs
-- fire like spider children in your hair--
fire like all the quilts--
4.
heat-- in the wavering forehead of a tabla drum--
shaken like carnival goldfish-- like 
helicopters-- like fire--
5.
I don't like alarm clocks.
6.
There is no such thing as a pleasant
alarm clock. 
7.
Remove my head
from the inside of the tabla drum.
8.
I live there-- body rocked by your
thumb vibrations-- call and response
of the goldfish-- beating
of the helicopter wings--
9.
For most of the day
I un-buckle like a shaken carnival-- 
I ask my wrist how
many more hours until sleep finds me
again like an 
unwanted encounter between lips--
a slip-- an accident--
--a falling of baby fire birds--
10.
I make my bed in the morning
and spend the day in refold-- re-tucked
arrange the pillow upside down and rest my head
like a helicopter but 
anxiety is as persistent 
as an unmade bed
11.
I wear my comforter as a cape and you
ask where I'm flying to.
12.
Fall into sleep like
a fire bomb.
1.
Wake up before the fire
and before the goldfish.
I make my bed beneath the gust
of helicopter wings
and fold the sheets
like spider mother's quilts--
I'm just the dead child with 
the tabla drum as 
an alarm clock.