look-away rooms

you tell me there is a man in the mailbox again.
i go out there & find a television. 
there is never a man but there is always a talisman. 
carry it to the compost & ask it, "please go easy." 
ants spill from its mouth. a sputtering video 
about the lives we lived before we 
had fingers. on my phone someone is
asking their friend if shrimp have brains.
i want to shake them. of course they do.
we are all always thinking about who
will love us & who will eat us. if we were shrimp
i would compliment the length of your antennae. 
how you clean the mouths of gods. 
we drive home & the car grows millipede legs.
you close your eyes & say,
"the man is back." you are driving.
there is no man. nothing. just a road full
of optional deaths. the billboard that advertises 
plastic surgery & the billboard that tells us,
"it is time for money." i want to tell you
to pull over but i know you like you drive
when you're feeling impossible. i find another tv
on the porch when we get home
& this time i take it to the look-away room.
the long closet with all the skeletons & all the bills
& all the clothes we don't know what to do with. 
i wonder about putting myself 
in the room. if it would eat me or if i would
learn how to live there. sometimes life
closes around you like a drawstring bag.
other times you really feel like the meadows
are eternal & not always under threat
of being transformed into warehouses.
i pet your head. your eyes are like hard boiled eggs.
i wish there was a man. something real i could
wrestle to the ground. who i could feed
to the look-away room with the broken chairs.
instead, your fears are like mine. standing right
there. full of blood. gone in the flashlight.
standing always jut over an arm's length away.