Gold monster cowers in fear in a queer bedroom where elephants once sat. Broken baby crawls toward the cradle thinking maybe this is the day when the world ends. Headless shadows race down empty corridors as marmalade marbles roll across broken floorboards. The baby swallows them, wallows in the wishes of a yesterday without forgiveness. The mistress wakes from her daily afternoon nap and finds the body less appealing without breath. Desecrated and despondent, the grandfather clock has stopped ticking decades ago. Tangerine sun shines and dries the tears. Neglect festers in the walls. Ants are marching in figure eights around early morning shadows in search of strawberries. Cobwebs make love with lonely spiders. Stars fall from sapphire sky, never to be seen or heard from again, except deep within desolate blue eyes, of a dragon in disguise.

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Matthew Dexter is an American writer living in Mexico. He survives in Cabo San Lucas.