red light therapy

i like to believe briefly in miracle cures.
a billboard was talking about red light
& so in the danger place i googled where
& how i might take part in this ritual.
images of women laid out & bathing
in red. who wouldn't want to soak
with the sound of a warm planet?
different websites claim different benefits.
you will look younger. you will stop weeping
when the moon submerges again
in the great bowl of cold noodles. you will
remember the names of all your teachers
from grade school (even the ones who did not
ever exist). i always take it too far.
consider turning our upstairs room into
a red light room. the illumination from
beneath the door. a little portal to 
relieve the pain. my shadow, fresh 
as a rack of ribs. i stop myself before 
i buy a lamp. instead, i go outside to try
to find as much red as i can. i encounter
some horror strawberries at the market.
each of them shivers with the sights it has seen
to arrive pristine & seemingly ghostless. 
i fail to find more red. not a flower or even
a drop of blood. all my red beneath 
the surface. the animals too, spotlights 
in the tree's hair. i give up on my cures 
almost as soon as i find them. by the next night
i am fed up with red. i am painting my tongue
green. emptying the room upstairs.
sweeping the steps where i let mars sleep
while i was in my red obsession. shoo him
away with the kitchen broom. the billboard,
changed again. this time a worship 
of snails. i prepare. sit in my mailbox 
& try to call my father. he will not have
any good advice but i need someone 
to be an adult for me. to say,
"the next miracle will be the one."