Water Soluble Dreams
It’s moon hour
when the governor of California
asks the bathroom mirror what to do, what to do
about the drought,
and the governor of the bathroom mirror
stands inside the oval frame, waiting
to answer for himself.  When they reach
in unison for the faucet,
it’s toothbrush time, it’s floss minutes, one’s right
is the other’s left, water flowing
twice into double drains.
I asked the residents to cut 
water use by 20 percent,
says the governor of California,
mimes with reversed mouth
his backwards twin,
but they refused to listen. 
Then the faucet sputters.  Then the sputtering
turns to coughing, turns
to wheezing, to desert sand
rushing into the sink, the longest
shushing, so the governor of the bathroom mirror
flees, runs until he runs
inside my home, into my tea green bathroom,
and motions toward the showerhead,
its perpetual dripping.  I read
his lips: You’re one to talk.  I am one to talk,
am talking now, expressing concern
and ambivalence.  I must have two sides,
two mouths, two minds,
two lives: one that worries about the future
while the other
sleepwalks through the fire.
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