My father lit a cigarette and smoked the room up
with choked circles,
he rewrites every woman
he sees,
metamorphosis asunder,
because nothing is on tv.
My mom was hauled blindly
away from love to evening's riverbed
--to **** the fear of
correction away.
Birds talk about fish
that fly in airline crusades, gobbling up wise owls.
Blossom talons pluck
--up their words,
the closest a lie can come to the truth
and be set in stone None of them
will be remembered
the way they want to. footnote retribution.
The wandering dead only care about
modeling on the covers
of psychology magazines--hailing reviews that digest indulgence
beautifully,
carving chocolate waists
down
to starvation--we melt away to gnats
in Prozac hives
shingled with academic love papers
& bible covers.
Dear Alice,
you stole our table of tea, our shaved vigil,
our western rodeo,
our alcoholic omega.
Midnight on the dishonored battlefield
with the scythe beneath us,
we murmur love back into
our sheets of high horror.
Your meteorite adultery could not wipe
this hard drive clean--what we would lose...
the things we cannot touch.
Cloud 9 LSD,
its warriors passing
weapons down to the flock's ashes--to wives who fear
the wrath of their husbands. Chlorine gills quit
cold turkey
--sinks overfill under unorthodox skies--the turning of centuries
is nothing like flipping
pennies
into wishing wells.
