tell me if this is all true

I GIVE YOU A ROOM, YOU WILL MAKE OF IT SOMETHING

It’s a mail slot for delivering messages
to your doppelganger. It’s a portal
to another dimension in which you and
everyone you know are made of
balsa wood and held together with
glue. It is not so far from the truth.
It is a wound in the heart of the building.
It is a window. It is your level self. It is
a wormhole. Stay back; it is not a slide. 

You’re in the gallery of repetitive vision.
On the floor, the wall, are the spots
you see when you close your eyes, hold
your breath. The spots of hope and of
dread. In the mirrors stare the multiplied
faces of hope and of dread. Notice how

this room reminds you of the roller rink
on disco night. Notice how you removed
your shoes, but were given no skates
in return. Past mirrors and doors are
more mirrors and more red-hot dots and
posing beauties waiting for you gently
to un-pose them. Up the tilted ramp. 

In the dark room: two chairs, two people.
Darkness overwhelms, you cannot see
the tips of your fingers. It is not calming.
Something will happen. People are trying
to get in, but there is only room for two.
Maybe it has been two minutes, maybe five.
You are to wait for fifteen, then something
will happen. You can’t wait. You back out
of the room to the red box pulsing. 

And here are the speakers of your stereo.
Covered in crimson, twin suns setting
in the fine dust of the atmosphere
on a planet just this unlike your own.
Thumping, rusty hearts left wet too long
under dual suns. They speak a language
faintly like German, tinged with gutted
fairy tales, with Black Forest cherries,
with corrosion, with the march down
the bed of the river. Then the rushing,
the diving, the thunderous water below.

Erin Keane