Houndstooth

Sold by Peter Szuhay, "Glass Cameo Ring
of Morpheus," c. 1800

The demiurge wants to pull tight on the leash, jerking
us up and out of our dreams: no time for foolishness,
it growls, you’d best believe this world’s a very serious
place, and what did I give you consciousness for, if not
to fret? Call me ungrateful, but subaltern creators are
no use to me. I prefer a mystery to what’s spelled out,
animals before Adam named them, and I tell that to a
god clad in a loud houndstooth coat, holding his bone
and horn box of dreams. He’ll help us slip the leash if I
promise to pay, and I do. The houndstooth god waits
on me to bring him honey (this poem, perhaps) from a
sleeping hive where bees hum and murmur, dream of
nectar from pale Nicotiana, white Cestrum nocturnum.