JEFF, JERRY, & THE LAP
Jerry says, “The chance of winning the lottery
is one in a billion. Decent odds!”
Jeff buys tickets, displays them on the mantle.
They both pray, believing
there’s a one in a billion chance
that God hears or cares,
but why not? Lightning hit Jerry’s Aunt Lu
while she talked on the phone.
Strange things happen—
once they do they’re less strange.
Jeff pines to sit on the lap of luxury,
fate stroking his head like a cat.
He pictures Jerry and himself
swimming in a gold ocean. They get off the lap,
go to work, settle for crumb cake
and a K-Mart going out of business sale.
DREAM CAUSED BY THE FLIGHT OF A BEE AROUND A POMEGRANATE A SECOND BEFORE WAKING UP
Painting by Salvador Dali
Tail high, a tiger leaps. Sometimes
a naked woman or man lounges
on the grass. Love,
last night I dreamed we were
in my old grade school. You had,
viciously, killed a piece of chalk.
A bee stung me. I began to talk
in a language I didn’t know.
You ran off with the bee. I woke up
alone. The tiger beside me.
SOFT CONSTRUCTION WITH BOILED BEANS
(PREMONITION OF A CIVIL WAR)
Painting by Salvador Dali
The water boils away, a stench
and ruined pot. We set a nice table,
avoid the trombone anchorman
who plays too loud. Someday
we’ll have to bleach our bones
before presenting them to the Office
of Bone Collection. You wish
that the sky looked cleaner, yearn
for a polish to shine clouds,
the sun a shiny gold button
on a cloud’s open shirt.
As morning darkens we scream,
not with mouths, but with pores.
No one hears. Perhaps
we still look normal.
BUBBLE BATH
Wandawoowoo sinks
into bubbles, thinks she’s Atlantis.
They line her skin, pop silently
as warm water drips
from the faucet. She wonders
is death like this? Mist
and disappear—the tub,
a coffin, holds you better
than any arms.
Each space between her toes,
a bellflower that grows in cracks
between patio tiles. Water
dreams its own shore
to wash up on. Two candles
fade, coconut smoke
as she emerges.
WANDAWOOWOO’S IMPRESSIONS
Woodrow says that I’m
another Dolly Parton
minus the make-up
which I never wear, get called
a bitch since I don’t turn
my lips into red logs.
Buffy says that I’m
another Dolly Madison
minus the White House. I avoid
parties and cringe among
important people. I’d rather marry
a flop, not a fop.
I used to press Play-Doh
on a comic, pulled it into
odd shapes. That’s the way
impressions are. Someone
reads you as if you’re a copy,
distorts it. Me too.
We fear originals, preferring Elvis
on a glow-in-the-dark napkin
to Elvis wailing “Big Hunk o’ Love.”
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