dictionary and trip to the sea

The sink is clogged with asterixes -
fool, you're supposed to rinse the kettle
before just sloshing the whole damn
pale-blue mess down.

The dishes are corroded with semicolons,
the apostrophes are spilling from
the chipped, pastel mugs.

It's all going to get caught in the filter,
anyway, he yells, the flicking of his
tin lighter like typewriter keys down the hall.

The towels are gasping, wincing,
with their wrinkled terry-cloth tongues;
when I sink into the scummy tub
for a soak later, they'll still be
whispering about his hullabulloo.

Someone with slow, accented words
is muttering about cocaine
on the radio - scrathy,
tunnel-voice - and my toenails are
lacquered red, flaking, too long
for socks. Has to be Sunday.

Pulling the filter from the oil-colored water,
there's the promise of little prayers
over whiskey for the screaming
underscores and periods caught in
the spiral;

wish I could explain the physics of
whirlpools to them for comfort;
they've lost it.

Perceive, perceive, perceive.

Perceive him singing offkey
to the wooden loons carrying steam on carved wings
along the bathroom walls, toweling his straw hair,
scowling at lipstick-callme-kisses
on the cracked mirror, feeling each
magic-marker curve of a cursive nickname
fading on his hipbone.

Meanwhile, outside,
scooping the sour, scared, surviving punctuation
into the aqua grass while dawn tiptoes drunk
around skin:
nothing is punctual anymore.