Sleep No More

Sleep No More is performed three times a night, through dance, without words.

I’m afraid we have been here
before, to Manderley, in a past life,

before I could pronounce your name.
I ask you to marry me in Brooklyn

after two months and two absinthes.
Elderflower numbs this morning when

I told you to run, that I have fatal habits,
that these things which are broken

could one day be yours.
We are separated when we arrive

at the McKittrick Hotel: King of Clubs,
Queen of Hearts. Without you, I find

The bathtub where Lady Macbeth
washes blood off her beloved, running

her fingers through crimson hair.
When she suddenly runs three steps

along a wall, I follow down four flights
to the basement where her witches are waiting.

In unison the actors trade their clothes
for goat heads and ram horns. Folding

their bodies together, they dance
violent like animals seeking warmth,

penises and breasts careening
under strobe lights. As I watch,

I wonder if I wish you were with me.
On the subway from Hudson Yards

you tell me how you alone were shoved
out of the elevator onto the sixth floor.

A woman in a nurse costume
wheeled you down a pitch-black hall,

struck a match in the dark,
whispered prophecies in your ear.

How, while looking up at the Brooklyn
skyline through holes in the ceiling,

she brushed her lips on your forehead,
and said Don’t come back here.