An insight examines a lifetime
while an ocean flows under my feet.
My feet no longer feel

since my body’s beside itself.
I’m at an altar, calling on the gods
of the boggled mind to save me,

pouring two more mother-may-I’s
into the emptiness.
I’m at risk of being pushed

through a plate glass window.
The Hellhound looks down on me
from a higher plane –

two evil eyes and three mouths
all work in tandem in order
to bark out a final decree.

There’s no one to ask what it’s like
being dead to the world.
I imagine a switch gets tripped

as the window gives permission
for each multiplex person to merge
their many selves into one.

Who will be blamed, I wonder,
for living the life that was mine?
A blue bowl catches whatever

comes its way: birds, clouds,
high-wire act reactions.
The hypocrite Hellhound

uses a mirror to decide what looks
enough like it to let live and who
it will smash through the glass.