As False as Smiles

Manners are the party fancy — Petit goldleaf on the melting pudding, A sticking cream now on your fingers, Immovable for hours. Manners like a lady, Her morning bonnet pinned, Perching, tilting in the wind. That flat earth, mountained at the dome, With feather shores and flower groves, Shiny plastics, false as those at home. Nods and bobs and toothy smiles, Inflections in their proper place, But my greetings, lumbersome and cumbering, Like falling up the carpet staircase. Admire my racing stripes— How fast they run my eager thoughts, Like greyhounds on the track. Striped in life, strung up in death, A dripping turkey, limbs akimbo. My brain is too human for me, My tongue declares me animal, Its words condemn me man. So I crave the choking baby squeeze, Until my secrets spill, hurled, Bile like from the lemon press, Dribbling, a puddle, A sour sting to wipe your turgid eyes, And join the salty swimming race.