Five Slivers

by | Nov 12, 2022 | Stop Making Sense 2 - Day 2

good night moon good night father

while you snore I spend the night traversing your mouth like a derelict vagabond on occasion resting by a jagged molar noticing how your breath smells like turpentine and death noting how your tongue resembles a salmon-colored dragon its flame stilled for the evening slumbering sweating prepping itself for another day of blowtorch slaughter

on the beach

on the beach they’re all eating sand handfuls of grit the tide a retreating monster surly and selfish starfish curdle and bake beneath the huge orange boulder a marmalade star pus-colored and infected grown obese and too proud for the sky I write a message on the low-hanging arm of a cloud and watch the wisps shred into ether one question too many another prayer begged too late

traffic

instead of a bible verse I had what you never said tattooed on my wrist some think it’s a corsage others a camp stamp from Auschwitz it doesn’t matter nothing does but that the moon follows me every day like a jealous stalker bent on revenge as I take a wrong turn pedal to the metal down the on-ramp

his best pick

at the wake there’s a séance in your eyes when I ask what you’d loved and who you’d kill and why you lied even though father favored you as no child should ever be favored

caught

there’s a power outage on your face everything ripe and disrupted as you wait for the tree to fall holding out your arms as if to catch a plummeting babe or a tooth that god spit free without even noticing

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