bedtime story

tell me i am your tapioca pearl.
make me as small as a crabapple 
carried in the mouth of a dove.
i put on my headphones 
& become a tongue. how, when i was
a glass bead my father would roll me
between his hands. tell me stories 
of the origins of purple
& where flowers choke on red music.
i want the one about the old man
& the dying planet. i want the one about
a greedy tree. your thumbs over pages.
your voice a mug of water.
how much i crave the miniscule.
to live into magnifying glass words.
oceans odf silk. a blanket made
of mowed law. outside, i am 
the skeleton of so many demands.
the stop sign & the stop light
& the library mood. babysitting trashcans.
shoveling a heap of eyelashes.
here & now though i am just
a banana leaf with a baby on top.
the sound of rain. i ask for you
to read another. talk to me until
the sun is a clementine again.