So dark it was the dogs would not walk, not one of them
and our eyes spinning in their sockets
like the eyes of a someone in a cartoon
who has been hit, hard, and knocked over the side
of some steep cliff
suspended for a second as if gravity were another
option to choose from
candy store-style, licorice in bins, sticks of black
and red, soft jelly hearts and soft teeth
smelling like strawberry, tiny black tires
full of salt and hardness
spit out by the street until the sidewalk clicks when
you step on it.
The room was magic even if it was a museum made
to look that way,
colors soft and bright as blush,
lipstick and eyeshadow, cat collars, gems you stick all
over your face
and the colors changing that white room
and its annex every shade of pink, blue, orange, green
and gray,
the room rounded like candy and powdery-looking
but every object in the room, meaning other people,
perfect strangers, in sharp focus,
creases and eyelashes outlined and almost harsh
but the air diffuse and the doorway we climbed in
up the black steps also changing. All night
our eyes felt the light
of other places; the sharp blue dots on bar glasses
the chandeliers and their glow, even white plates
put forth a shine
as the black cod glistened in sauce; wine put a red shift
into the atmosphere
as if we were falling apart or flung distant from every
other object, just far enough to pull together
beneath a sign for dry cleaning and cars zipping past
our eyes open wide and white to catch the light.
