There is
heartbreak in select Mexican cuisines,
And fear in
sticks casting erections in the water.
Boy Meets World twitches cockroaches in
my floorboards;
Perhaps better
off than rusty snake cages housing empty beer cans.
Sepia night
grafts sing strange sounds of sound strangers on the coast,
Because that’s
what they are,
And sandy
edges bleed strangeness always after.
Boyfriend
parking lots gun the vomit stream,
But so do
tomatoes.
It’s all the
same fire gut engulfed.
Heart beat
tremors vibrate like old times of birth and thirsty death,
And you’re a
child again.
Even day folding
into black construction paper
Where I hide
and hold my legs
Hints at when
you called me a saint,
And I turned
out to be embarrassingly mortal.
Some uncles
don’t keep their hands to themselves,
And 20-year-old
sex-talk puts his hands back
Just as
sweaty as ever.
Acidic spine
stole her father in shapes.
He echoes at
television news programs,
Cursing the
gays when the Catholics are on
And cursing
the Catholics when the gays are on
And cursing
both when Obama is on,
And he said
the living room isn’t a porn store
And that
17-year-old’s are 26-year-old crack-peddlers,
And mother
didn’t want to ‘people-watch’ at Starbucks,
And the
walls rot.
50 year old
woman gets hotheaded with her head in the oven,
But only as
long as Superman has capes,
And can she
even bake?
8th
graders equipped with kitchen knives cut love into their girls,
Made their
names big for a holy return of larger shadows
Which are in
everything.
Tiny
red-potato feet stepped puddles in bellies once,
But eyes
closed, reincarnations forced shut,
And these
are even in jelly beans.
Like spider
eggs,
These
experiences are tucked, grown, and birthed in our dark places.
Stomachs and
chest cavities make caverns for them where they grow tainted.
If an old
sneaker kicks, they all go spouting eight-legged nostalgic tidal waves,
And we can’t
hang.
Crawlers
hunt and haunt.
Build a web.