three poems
Shy Watson
"free the nipples"
I beat a guy
who had a crush on me
at beer pong
we got stoned
in the Walmart parking lot
when my car wouldn't start
6 months later
he
"free the nipples"
I beat a guy
who had a crush on me
at beer pong
we got stoned
in the Walmart parking lot
when my car wouldn't start
6 months later
he
at work last night a group of brisbane boys came to sydney
they hired our function room to celebrate their friend's bucks night
they had been at the races all day betting on horses and
So I retired and wrote a book, / called games for NBC. / But I was far too fond of drink / and prone to anarchy, / my own damn anarchy.
The cops catch your friend, bullet belt and pants around his ankles. Chain link fence skins your back. Your ankle grinds like burnt clutch on your girlfriend’s Jeep. She keeps a pair of dog tags in her apron. There is a divot in her hipbone.
Gary Coleman walks into a bar and says something sassy, but the bartender’s a bear, so instead of replying he stands on a big rubber ball and juggles. There’s a song maybe too, in the foreground perhaps, something an organist might feel inclined to play.
By the time I hang up, the goats turn into Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez. We smoke my last cigarettes, the three of us.
Faith is a party you weren’t invited to, and God is a man
in a sheet with poked eyes to see;
you want to believe.
When we found the dead whale, we couldn’t recover the eye of it, and because I hadn’t lost my mother, I managed to survive.
She says the moon is just an overflowing ashtray with butts buried in the dark side.
I tell you I wish my dad would come out as trans like Caitlyn Jenner &/or late-in-life gay like my ex-boyfriend’s father.
for Rachel Corso
Have you tried all our salsa flavors before?
This is mild (not medium), this is spicy, this is verde
(That means green), this is volcanic, this is you
Not listening.
My new friend interrupted me to say, “You seem like you live like a real artist.”
My new friend had already been twice published by The New Yorker.
I thought maybe she had confused me with herself.
Let the okra go to waste, steal oranges from the
corner store. I'll tell you that I love you like I've
loved no one else. Our bodies are made to be
useful, move fast. The fastest man in
Love is like a museum. You have to look around, experience things, and then leave.
Garielle's longest, most peculiar, most particularized book. A sure-to-be collector's item. Delivery 4-6 weeks!
“Legs Get Led Astray is a scorching hot glitter box full of youthful despair and dark delight.”
—Cheryl Strayed, author of WILD