Song Of The Psychopath
By Andrew Kozma
My head is a tympanum. It is an orchestra.
It is all the instruments turning inside out.
The fence is enough to keep the stray dogs out,
but the cats are commas, slipping in everywhere,
and my head echoes with claws. My head tries,
but it can’t make enough noise to drown out the noise.
Perhaps my head is going about this all wrong.
Owl heads never have this problem. But my head
is narrow and agrees that space and time are fixed
to a single point in the distance. I am there,
watching my head slowly approach, beating its drums
of warning. For so long I’ve been without you,
and I’ve been okay. Silent, but okay. Thoughtless, too,
but oh how my instincts have raged erotic! The brain,
dear head, sees only the death of each moment it lives.
My head nods. It agrees. It opens its mouth to let me in.