Cheap ale pools in a Styrofoam cup.
She’s barefoot in gravel,
anklet flashing beneath the floodlamps.
Pickup window ajar, radio blaring
“Friends in Low Places.”
Her jeans slung low,
hips marbled violet on the porch-swing,
ash winnowing across her thighs
from last night’s guttering fire.
I watch the buttes flatten at gloaming,
a silo blinking red—
a wound stitched into the earth.
She speaks of leaving at firstlight.
I say nothing,
fingers tracing the stubs of dead cigarettes
between her knuckles.
Coyotes keen beyond the barbed-wire.
The stars loom Pendulous
We do not lift our gaze.
TV news broadcasts the motel dark,
she lies flat, belly soft with rabbit tattoos,
ash smudged into the sheets.
My boots drip clay and pesticide,
fingers stained from counting nickels.
Outside, a pumpjack bows to the ground,
over and over,
like it’s praying.
She whispers something about escape.
I kiss the scar beneath her jaw,
taste motel soap and Marlboro light.
The window rattles
an oil train snakes past in the distance,
headlights stitching the prairie shut.
Somewhere under the bed,
a cockroach drags a matchstick.
We don’t speak again.
Just listen
to the fridge counting seconds
between the thunder.
Hail needles the skin.
Wind cracks the spine.
The mountain holds,
breath seizes on the tongue.
Snow knives the summits.
Cracked hands fumble dry stone,
paper-thin air slices,
bald eagles tilt in the blast.
Alpine skiers parched,
no more Earth Day banners.
Cherry Creek scrapes its bed.
Feces in the bedpan,
chapped gloss smeared,
cocoa hair salted and smoked.
The Zephyr rattles east,
carrying the mountains backward—
Grand Central dissolves
Hail nails the skin.
Wind stabs the spine,
the mountain stretches,
breath freezes the tongue,
Snow visible on the summits
High-altitude crumbling
cracked hands claw at dry stone,
Paper thin air
sharp, jagged edges.
Bald Eagles circle overhead
Alpine sky, dry and broken—
no more Earth Day vegetation
Cherry Creek scrapes the sand
She lifts the bedpan
Chapped gloss superstar lips
Cocoa fur, stained by cigarette smoke
and the wind carries all,
The Zephyr rolls in
Grand Central Station
Peaks in background
Damp linens flung aside
sodden cushions
Flank by flank
She was damp
Nickel sack and bark rings
Verdant gaze meet hazel orbs
Ripe late April Northern Flatlands moisture
Slaughterhouse savory mist perfume
Slender dull rose covering on the pane
Cooling unit recirculating
Coral beams groom her visage
Midday vernal noon
the drizzle ceased the light slivered in
Naked gourd blossoms adhesive juice
Lurching brined
The toddler flesh on her abdomen
She didn’t cleanse
Just exited my one-room lodging
Infatuation perspiration,
Empty uterus,
Pixie sperm dribbling,
Contraceptive device
Marriage band fabricator.
Moist sheets tossed aside
soaked pillows
Side by side
She was wet
Dime sack and tree rings
Green sight meet brown peepers
Plumb late April Boreal Plains humidity
Abittor Unami eau de cologne
Thin plain pink blanket on the window
Air conditioner recirculating
Salmon rays preen her face
Noon spring afternoon
the rain stopped the sun peeked in
Bare cucumber blooms sticky seeds
Hanging over pickled
The baby fat on her belly
She didn’t bathe
Just left my studio apartment
Erotomania sweat,
Womb vacant,
Leprechaun semen leaking,
Birth control implant
Wedding ring manufacturer,
Laconic
Stand cold 3 AM on work line, slighted, famished, impoverished, vanished, faded, hungry.
Long walk down Cliff Avenue hill, US Highway, dissecting sides of Sioux.
Hard day labor, sex offenders, hardened convict, roll down production line.
Here I am, college degree, communication binge drink, division one university in Brookings, America.
Capanelle visible 15 miles north on 90.
Piece work calendars, and walking after George Floyd in Sioux Falls.
A night of gunshots, shots.
Riot at Empire Mall, stolen rifles, gun store Grange Avenue.
Tires littered Otter River, drought, water under a foot.
The cool breeze paints Josh Moore, tobacco papers, comic book background.
Federal courthouse a mile south, lady judge United States.
“Born in the USA.”
Katie’s ribs pressed against her skin,
the sharp angles of a body once soft.
She lifted her blouse, let me see—
the stubs, the little bumps,
two perfect incisions smooth as marble.
I swallowed.
Physically lubricious—I couldn’t do it.
Her perfume fought the chemo stench.
Coiffed mascara, a careful face,
a practiced smile, teeth too straight.
She asked if I still wrote poetry.
I said nothing.
Once, she stretched across the hood of my car,
blonde roots peeking through red box dye,
sipping melted ice from a gas station cup,
her freckles a map I traced in secret.
She could talk for hours,
a queen without a kingdom.
She whispered after the hysterectomy,
baby gravy’s got nowhere to go.
No need for rubber—
I trust you.
I left the room, shame humming in my jaw,
the sound of her voice stuck in my teeth.
Later, I cried.
Lips mops caress waterfalls crash metallic nerve laughing gas confession
watermelon sugar sister scissors
clocks tick loud like shaved ambergris
Laminated kerosene lamps illuminate
Evanescence oblivious presence
Skull bird knives spike of peachy creamery
Pentagram ouija board machinery’
Throats chokes, nose pinched in bleached milkshakes. tiny ears buried speechless
Mousetrapped.
I gave it all
Idea of profit hope for snowflake March and November rain. Are you leading back to Rapid City or Pine Ridge?
I was in the halfway house in Mitchell. Did you visit the Corn Palace or the doll shop?
I heard you are in Aberdeen. I am still your dream?
Symmetrical preponderance stopwatch courthouse cuckoo clock
Spitting on gravestones North Minnesota
Idea of profit hope for snowflake March and November rain. Are you leading back to Rapid City or Pine Ridge?
I was in the halfway house in Mitchell. Did you visit the Corn Palace or the doll shop?
I heard you are in Aberdeen. I am still your dream?
Symmetrical preponderance stopwatch courthouse cuckoo clock
Spitting on gravestones North Minnesota
Oval day broke and hunger looking for $5 meal
Walk into the discount store. Food fossils line the shelves, with beverages stacked in dusty years and bread petrified with mold, hard for two weeks. Jesus sings to shoppers from the boombox. Nero mocks Biden for losing to Caesar. They ban weed and *********** but hand kids assault weapons for school shootings. Broadcasts sold in installments to poor folks play on countryside AM like Roosevelt’s nightly chats. Jesus is a friend, but compassion ain’t rent. Social Security and EBT rolled cigarettes . Get a job, hit the streets, and hear jail anthems for the broken. Jesus’ blood drips, Buddha weeps, and they spit on my poppy’s grave. Rome is for Romans, commandments nailed for Judas, and the American dream turns to apostasy. The Samaritan’s gas tank runs dry. Billionaires make their riches from fraud, while Protestant TV preachers fleece the flock. The revolution flickers on the tube. Why is God love, Jack?
Steel insulation warm thin hot smooth downy shepherd smoothness. Pistol clasps palms crystal misses birching basket weavers.
Fluffy firm pedestals release hard deniers.
Doldrum office charts demonstrating
Appendages conceal resistance.
Halcyon boogie board heroes.
Greek play rehearsal.
Steel insulation warm thin hot smooth downy shepherd smoothness. Pistol clasps palms crystal misses birching basket weavers.
Fluffy firm pedestals release hard deniers.
Doldrum office charts demonstrating
Appendages conceal resistance.
Halcyon boogie board heroes.
Greek play rehearsal.
Spoon and smacks, a sweet screw and strap,
Skank cucumbers, sugar's hammer bed;
The donut hotdog, sausage swing to lap,
A slide of neck, a drum of meat and head.
Fur, nipples, pickles, bear, and bull do juice,
The twine, pole, grab leather boots;
Belts, handcuffs, laces, panties, and the noose,
Sword, slave, lipstick, eel, antler, and the hoot.
*****, tunnel, clam, purr, kitty, volcano,
Mussel, worm, shell, and underwear of fleece,
Pussy, thermostat, screams of spank and hollo,
Ashley, pomegranate, hips, and strawberry kiss;
Peach butt cheek, bite, chokecherry and the lips,
Tunnel, vulva, cherry, breasts, and neck.
Sub Categories
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