Alphabet Entrance
take me away, silly puppet
dangle in front of me
a thousand symbolic fonts
Drop Dead Stop
Running into drop dead stop—
it hurts, you know.
Got a gumption to set myself on fire
but all the signs said "hell no" ...
Go back the way you came,
so I ended up in that tiny place
droppin’ like a damsel, I squirmed
I swore on fate another day
but she found me ‘cross the aisle
in that nondescript truck stop
all that brought me was the neon signs
and no car. go, go, go.
Not a second of misdirectognition—
but it’d been so long.
Where will the story end?
Another patron enters, another
messages to atoms, material moves
a plane, I am surely unaware of, working
the road turns, it bows.
Examinations
Thank you
for the tiny metal implements, sharp
digging into torn flesh
furrow out black misshapen bits of rock
gravel lodged in various degrees like maggots
burrowing deep
Are you pregnant with it
bleeding no part
now I walk this path
my own
wounds wrapped
tight like oats, thick.
come in capsules. Why
do we
come in veils
Mary
In a frame, I would call unfortunate.
picked over by the color-blind.
The print falls away, warped.
Did you see it falling?
Mary comes.
Mary licks her fingers,
then touches,
then licks some more.
Mary feels small.
Mary understands
the swift, exacting
death of a small thing.