Datura Stramonium Delirium

I feel lovely tonight
As I lie in my bed
Breathing in the soft frocks
Spinning open like a ballerina’s skirt
On pointe

Floating
Simply
Couru
Glissade
Across the wooden floor
Like the ghosts
That live here
With me

One a member of the
First Nation’s tribe
Algonquian
That is trying to speak to me
In his ancestral tongue
Ojibwe
As the erect trunks
Of the Devil’s Trumpet
Reach high up into the midnight moon’s glow
Of the October sky
A good eight to nine feet tall
Orange bell flowers
Hanging just below my windows
Glowing
Like small lit pumpkins

I lie quietly in bed
Breathing in tropane alkaloids
Atropine
Hyoscyamine
Scopolamine

And I understand
As he tells me
How the Lord Shiva
Was fond of smoking the Datura
And that they smoked together once
Using the Algonquian pipe
Spending several days
Crossing skies
And galaxies

Holding hands
And dancing

Grand Jete
Entrechat
Fouette En Tournant

The Indian man presented his pipe
To the Lord as a gift
And they still keep in touch
As spirits can

The Indian man ghost
Closed my eyes
With his invisible fingers
Offering me protection

As ballerinas’ skirts drop
At different times
Throughout
The length of night
Landing
Upon the ground
Far below
Leaving their attractive white legs
Naked and exposed