reading Paradise Lost on Tuesday night

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reading Paradise Lost on a Tuesday night

Sitting beneath my Nana’s oriental lamp,
I plow face first through clouds 
of Harper Collins gnats, each stanza buzzing louder
than the crooked fan
that’s wobbling above my head.

They hurl themselves
with inky kisses against the hazel windshields
of my brain, 

which currently isn't open for visitors but has found 
its way to Apex, North Carolina, where 
it sips a lime Lacroix, fishing underneath 
the willow tree
where spiders dance on water
thick with summer algae.  

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