Inner Landscapes

There is water inside, she said.
In the middle of transparent seaweeds,
a parrot nests in its repetitions:
a dialogue of mirrors.

A family of fish swirl around an urn
I can’t open. An oar rows backwards
dipping its strokes in a sand city.

The dead kill me when I sleep,
kill me with smoke daggers; obstinate,
they tread water, crack mirrors, multiply
in ripped shadows.

Inside me, she said, there are landscapes
I am called to. I don’t know when. Don’t know how.