Dodo Eraser

The first time I tried to quit drinking
I bought what must’ve been a pallet
of seltzer. It became an obsession, trying

to do nothing
to my body,
nothing bad anyway

although eventually I ended up switching
over to the ginger-flavored ones
from Wegmans, which I’m sure have more

bad chemicals. Listening
to the early Darkthrone albums
from around when I was born, the internet

firmly ascendant but no one yet predicting
the slop takeover of human
communication, I entertained

the fantasy of starting
a one-man DSBM project, me of no
musical ability whatsoever, unable to shriek

even, I just tried and Quesadilla is hiding
still—she figured out how
to tuck herself behind the arm of the couch

that dollop of white fur on her back peeking
insistently out. We’ve never had a cat
breathe as fast as she does

but the vet says it’s okay. Thing
is, the vet could tell me
whatever and I’d immediately believe it, buy

the gabapentin, subjecting
myself to claw-based violence
in its administration. Sometimes

the thing that is healing
you also makes you want to tear away,
draw blood, scream. I have

this dream where I’m singing
a song I don’t know
all the words to, and the crowd is paying

attention to something
else, something far away that I can’t see
until I leave the stage, and when I do

suddenly the audience starts getting
really mad and usually there
it ends. Several

months ago I began experiencing
what I imagine you’d call night
terrors, where after a particular

hour late in the evening
suddenly every sound would make me
jump, figures

would appear—lingering
in my peripheral vision, windows
or doorframes. I haven’t

experienced anything
like this since I was a kid, and it’s so
goofy because I don’t really live

near anybody, barring
a few distant neighbors; there is no
real basis for this fear at all

in my manifest life, though seeking
analysis is always
an option,

drinking
from the fire hose of neurosis
or, failing that,

drinking
again. I’m out of ginger
seltzers anew

and Wegmans, their salmon belly shining
atop crushed ice, is so far
away. Not today

but soon, I’m hoping

*

I saw the spitting image of Joy
in Charles Town, it looked just like her
but she wasn’t with her son so I couldn’t

be sure. I was coming from the pharmacy
to get Pumpernickel’s prescription
which they took but can’t fill

until tomorrow. The pharmacist
had left early, which I had done also
from work to get there before they closed

so I briefly imagined this great chain
of dipping out going all the way back
to the Tiantai Mountains.

A dead fox on the road
right next to the black marks
from that car fire, burnt orange streak

haunting the shoulder. A kid
died in the wreckage, and her twin
lived, the boundlessness of impossibility

we live with every day
do the work of living in
hanging lights and white ribbon

on trees, A Blaze
in the Northern Sky playing in my fallen
AirPod as the river runs behind

the makeshift memorial
already a little askew

---

Tom Snarsky‘s book MOUNTEBANK comes out in March.