I learned early that **** was the form
of choice for ***.  Not that the act was
named or the ****** ugly.  

Where in the world are you all now?
you mealyworms.  How like you to
teach me violence as love and leave
me to learn the lesson so well.

I recline.  **** is the sharing of two
faces.  Your face smells of beer and
your pounding hips ground me.  I
lie.  You are a broken bottle smacked
against a building on a hot summer night.

You are the cigarette before left in the
weeds.  I learned from you not to trust
the backseat of cars, to wait for calls
from the garbage man’s son.

Trash man, black car, you hung
on a tree.  All your sperms dangle
in the light of the bowling alley, shine
in the rubber.

Old man, pound on me till you think
I am satisfied.  Old man.  Eat ****.
        old man eat ****
        old men eat ****, grow bald.
        Remember me in the dashlight
        I was the fifteen year old rubbed
        drunk, sunk under the haze of
        horror.  You were the gun.


Caroline Shank