Closet Camouflage
​Ethan Widlansky

I put the straight jacket on inside-out,
holding my selves together.

You look back through mirrored glass, swirling with sand
motes of memory that dot the bathroom’s
waning shafts of light. How do I miss you?

I try to tune a psychic dial
to white noise and drown out this past that I
can’t want to know better.

I left my new home for an old one,
knotted by time’s tangled skein
to the person I used to be. We talked
and I felt my selves slip. Mom is sad I’m sad 

She puts her ear to the door to know me
better. That’s mom’s love: ties criss-crossing time
like gossamer, swaddling me to suffocation.
Phosphenes shock your veil of silt with black and white and red,
in a scene of closet camouflage