Amy DeBellis: Staircase

I go to sleep cold and when I wake up cold I’m gnawing
on the rinds of my dreams. I have nightmares
where my teeth turn to sugar cubes and dissolve,
and the scariest part isn’t losing them
but feeling all the calories melting
onto my tongue.

Fur sprouts along my body like moss, like tiny
forests. My chest cadaverous, my shape
emerging tenebrous and sunken
from a nightmarish light.

Nobody can thumb my spun
-glass eye sockets or ring
my oxidizing
honeycomb bones,
this house I’ve built for myself
out of a deck of
collapsing
cards.

& thus you keep repeating dreary
philosophies like “each hand is a losing one”
but I don’t recall ever saying
that I wanted
to win.