bingo hall

i open my mouth for a number.
let's be dragon casserole. let's be 
tuesday night highway. our fingers made
of peanut brittle. we drive by a church
made of monkey bread. take a piece.
take a picture. i want to live
one space away from rapture. call the magic.
call the slinky down the stairs.
my brother used to say, "love the sinner,
hate the ___." there is a god but he is
very far away & does not know how to reach us.
sometimes he picks up his telephone
& all he hears is fire. there are nights 
i am a survivor & nights i am just a victim.
i do not always want to be the one
in the kitchen trying to pluck feathers 
off a basilisk, telling him,
"this is for your own good." once we drove
to new york to watch the thanksgiving balloons.
i ate peas from a can in the car. 
you traded your eyes with another man's.
chicken nuggets on the sidewalk.
i feast like a feral moon. lilies grow
beneath the wallpaper. they call "b4"
& i hear "before." before what?
before i had legs. before everyone knew
exactly how to slice an onion. 
before i had to walk into rooms & announce
that i am not trying to be a prophet
i am just followed by angels. they spit
in people's eyes sometimes just like
alpacas though their most closely related
human cousin would be the snow leopard.
i could be old tomorrow. i could be
holding a basket of knitting. 
the bingo is open to anyone. it is 
a little prison experiment just like 
most rooms are. here are the four corners.
here are the borders & here is your 
clear token from which you are
supposed to predict the future. 
all the doors in the world open at once.
cold air in. humid air in. birds in.
bugs in. boys in. calling "bingo!"
to a room of mourners. everyone is wearing black.
there is cash falling from the ceiling.
we all scramble to try
& pluck it from the ground. our genders
out the windows, banished by hunger.
i tell you, "i won" 
but really i mean, "i got lucky."