corpse-shaped
I am flat. I am a circle.
The New National Anthem
The unicorn bestrides
out from the moors,
through the mountains,
and over the lochs.
It uproots generations
of failed escapees into
vertiginous, intoxicated
stone formations
not strictly of this earth,
just to plant its horn
into my nerves.
Hysterically blind,
my fingers twitch
over a sheet of paper
of their own accord.
The ink bleeds black,
bold, and resolute
in a language only
a unicorn would know:
“Your teeth are rotting
from the inside out,
just to spite you.”Sunday Funday
I stare at the plate
propped on the shelf
like a mounted stag.
In its cloudy blue center
I see a fairer world
where I have
no arms and no legs,
no brain and no bones,
no skin and no nerves,
no desires and no obligations.
I am flat. I am a circle.
But not without a purpose.
In this world I am a circle
of the crudest material:
maybe paper or plastic.
Decorated with balloons
or flowers or hearts or
SpongeBob SquarePants.
A circle that holds
extra spicy buffalo wings
or extra rich birthday cake.
A circle that goes to the garbage
knowing it completed its task.
I wonder sometimes
if the plate stares back at me
and sees a fairer world of its own
where it can walk to nowhere
talk to no one
and dream about nothing.
I chuckle and tap the glass
to tell the plate how foolish it can be.
But then a hand clasps my shoulder
and security escorts me
out of the Pottery Barn.
“Same time next Sunday,” the guard whispers
as he pushes me into the revolving door.
“Yes,” I say tearfully,
spinning out into the mall parking lot.
When the time is right
I will make my move
and the plate and I will run away
into the sunset. Slow Dance
Time slows down to the purr of my keyboard
playing under lights of volcanic red that pulse
to the pace of a sedated patient’s heart.
Mother always told me, “Put your fingers on the keys
as you would put your fingers on a corpse.
Let the notes take you on a journey.”
It helps that my keyboard is corpse-shaped.
I store my keyboard in a padlocked room
where I sit awhile and let all my secrets out.
It plays notes of affirmation and stratagem;
it teaches me how to send messages to the stars.
“Mother, I never did learn how to fly,
but I am no longer afraid to fall.
Isn’t that enough for you?”
Tears streak like an invasive species
behind these checker-patterned shades.
The lights rest into a glacial blue.
My fingers gleam like crooked knives.
“If you’ll please clear the floor,
this is a slow dance for divorcees only.
Divorcees who know what they did.”The Impatience Diet
There is a fact of your life
that will reveal itself
in its own good time;
no matter how loudly
you plead or how much
you promise to sacrifice
in its honor. It sustains
itself on a diet
of your impatience,
seasoned by the salt of
your anticipatory agony.
It strikes without warning:
on final exams;
or at the climax
of your first lay;
or on the toilet during
your wedding night;
or being hoisted onto
the embalmer’s slab.
And in whatever mode it likes:
a jolt of vertigo,
or a twitch in the bowls,
or a breath-halting regret,
or a midnight joyride
with a mortician’s assistant
to Make-out Point.
All in the hope of
making you aware
of someone who’s name
splinters and flakes
in the heat of their
appalling credit. Whose
legs are a mystery;
always hidden in a hole
they lug by rope
everywhere they go.