Jazz Bath

There’s a story of a little girl who remembers her own death,

a car crash where everybody died. And I don’t know how it

happened but lately I tear up to hearing paranormal encounters.

Two men fishing in a sleepy Mississippi town, aliens with pincers

for hands. A boy who can fly down the steps with his kid sister,

a dead uncle lifting them each way. A djinn shadowing dreams.

Stuck in a haze of other people’s fear while my boyfriend sleeps

soundly. I show him the nail marks on my thigh, a recent night

terror, and he makes a 10-year budget plan. Climate deniers

flood my inbox, call me a shame to my profession. I draw a bath,

shadows moving around me like lace in a window. Beneath suds,

the algorithm responds beautifully to Miles Davis and I think of

my childhood, this angel-cast thing, and hear nothing but my heart.