Zero Gravity

From up here Mars looks like a campfire,
burning like inflamed blood vessels in the lungs.

Dancing like the silhouette of a match
waving goodbye to the evening sun.

The soles of my shoes are warm,
feet damp with perspiration.

These cigarettes taste like buttered toast.
A cursed Earth breaks beneath the weight of fear.

I am still…

Closer to breakfast than the Moon.

---

In Route To Wallace

A carnival de‐rooted and thrust from the cement, everything exposed. Wires and pieces of steel hung from the bottom of the carousel, fell out like organs, or at least there was the sound of an organ – hissing in the distance, the slow, solitary, hum of existence. Two horses crashed together, chipped paint on chipped paint, broken heads smiling. They looked as though they were kissing, a married couple, somewhat unnatural, puckering lips, like the couple I read about in a magazine. They held a kiss so long their faces suctioned together and the resistance threatened to tug out their God Fearing guts.

---

Whitewash

1.

Coca‐Cola rusts in my mouth as
I leave the Carolina blue exam room walls,

stepping into the muck of Tuesday afternoon.
It’s late summer, maybe August.

A woman dies, another finds shade.
All this on the way to the car.

Later, I told the pharmacist‐
It was like drinking a black crayon in hot water.

She picked up the seashell receiver of
the pharmacy phone and dialed

a number I could not decipher.

2.

A magazine on the table described
a broken window as the pane leaking glass.

Columns and columns of ads lay scattered
around me like mouse traps –

Just a little more cheese, I thought.

3.

Everything, a process.

Take one capsule by mouth
three times daily, more if needed.

I dine, microwaved steak,
Branston Brown Sauce.

The night carries on like this –
The silhouette of an upset stomach

resting on it’s side.