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Three Poems photo

 

Candied Almonds, or August 18th

Here we all are in the world with our
bones & our clothes & our stuff
bought on sale at Marshall’s.
What should we be doing here?
How can we put our things into the
proper boxes?      Think of how I cut
my teeth on a Barbie doll’s exposed foot
& you ran me over with a Big Wheel,
gravel ground into my cheek.
But our moms made us apologize
so we could grow up & carry
checkbooks in our purses.
I’m feeling moderately good
about that.            How about you?
Does the sky bulge above
& cut a yellow line across
the great, resounding thwack
of your life? Because it does mine.
It sure does mine.

 

May 3, or Coleslaw

I feel like I’ll never live anywhere
that has sunsets ever again.
Up in the sky
all they’ve got is
macaroni packet powder
smeared with coke snot.
I’m scared of buildings now
because I’m smaller &
I’m sadder than I ever thought
I was before. I have to wipe
my eyes all the time because
all the things around me
are there & when I blink
they’re still there.

The girl on the bus
has pigtails tinged with
grey. She carries a
unicorn balloon
that’s slowly sighing
out its air. I am a
slab. She’s a slab.
Holding our sides up,
holding our sides.

 

April 28, or Roast Beef

I feel like
shit & I hate
everything so I want to buy something
because that’s the only beauty I can think of.

All the money is wet & gummy
underneath the brightest pink trees.
They fade to breast cancer color when it rains.

By accident I hear that the sound my dishwasher makes
is RUST BELT RUST BELT over & over again &
I have to leave home forever.

There’s a thin sheen of oil on everything I own.
My dog shits out something that looks like a piece
of challah, a smelly brown braid here in
this tyrannical springtime. Let’s all
yell GET OUT until we do.

 

 

image: Caleb Curtiss


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