amphibi.us

Follow me to the sirens who smiled
on the cornerlot, while the police
blared and no one was home. It was
August, and in August no one is anywhere. Even
days tire of being days and run like dogs, days
speak to each other when we turn our backs
to the waves, when we wait for the moon’s
steady tug on our pasts. Days speak
to each other of our plans, so everyone
else knows our fates before we do, so we
are the ones who have to speak into the tin can
left over from a joke, and we lose our listeners
at ahem. There are words you can’t say, until
scout’s fingers have zipped all the way across
your mouth. Boy, it’s stuffy in this trusty
Volkswagen rusting in the parking lot. Today’s
lesson is on unitards and unilateral loves. I’ve been
there, in those one-way costumes and back. I had
to ask permission from the father, the religious
douche, the obsessive troubadour, the garrulous
hothead. I wanted with all my dandelion
heads to see his insides. Why, because he
was tragic, true eyes? And I was comic,
glue eyes? So I settled for the insides
of a death house, a place where jealousy
would, and did, draw blood. Say you
love vampire bats because they fly
without making noise. Well we can play this game
all night, but it doesn’t make me feel
any better. Russians love the ballet, understand
that once you lift yourself from Stalin’s spike
that we are happiest when we remember we
can die. So Charles latches on his bike
shoes—good-life charms—& rides into his mad
eyes, unwilling enslavers. Oh mystery, answer
my questions as soon as I get my phrasing, stolen
from the palomino’s airborn mouth.

© Karlanna Lewis, 2011