Unhinged

by Melissa Houghton

Who knew the screen was flawed?
Exposed, an incandescent home,
while skirts and belts fling fast
behind this panel’s fleeting shadow,
shadow sick of clinging
too tightly to generate a rattle.

In my design I’d make
the screen pitch black,
Pitch back, I say
and you would sing pitch green,
We’d breed and channel charge
from our machine. And you,
my dear would grow
like blackened greens.

We’d curse the worn out
stars with shards of screams, dents
puncturing rusted car doors
opening for mademoiselles…
on nights like these I want
to call loves old and new,
tell them I’ll hear what they
don’t have to say no more, like

which way blinds turn
to keep eyes out,
which way they’ll coil
to avoid the crowd.

It quakes me when I tell you
the reason I call on you:
my headache is a halo,
my heart is a crow.

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