CUTTING THE DOGS OPEN
I only want a close-up of your asshole.
I’ve already done a couple of stints in hospital. One was a country club. My job was to apply the lotion. An olive-colored scent.
We’re sitting in a bright green field, piercing each other’s nipples. You’re chasing me around. You’ve got a big glossy hat on.
Ivy, like ants, crawling over a ship. Pine cones. Schizophrenia. You’ve got to take them by the throat.
I stared into the fire. A sting of flowers burning my hands.
I burned to death.
IN THE HEALING RAIN
Buildings swirl round me.
Little twinkling lights. The sound perhaps of a duck, hiking up through the clouds.
Someone’s strangling you. You’re face down, searching for scraps. Shaking in a ditch, alone in a filthy motel.
A couple of philosophers crouched in a circle drinking coconuts through their bald, old straws.
You can fight. You can train.
You will get broken.
There’s no going back.
Your mouth opens.
MOTHER AND CHILD
Skinned. Deboned. Fat squeezed out.
They wrap me in gauze and bring me into the ground to meet my husband.
The sound of a train, ship, flute. Children drift into the trees. Heads on poles, on the back of a truck, firing into the air. They sing birthmarks and stitches all over me. Red and green mirrors. A blurring knife.
I open my body. And ride with them.
A wide stretching cage.
Anointed with shit.
A pale mouth.
I THINK OF YOU, LITTLE RABBIT
I put the worm on the hook.
I listen for trumpets. I listen for the sun. I am a good person dying. Changing. Mellowing out.
A fish swirls in and snaps at us in a red-green flourish. Sap runs down the tree. I just can’t calm down. My eyes are melting.
A seed vibrating in the cold earth.
Be brave, I tell myself. Don’t be a coward! Walk up to the scaffolding and make everyone, your friends and loved ones, proud.
I eat the hero in me.
Pour acid on her.
A DESTROYED NERVOUS SYSTEM
I push barbed wire into my bladder through my penis. It comes out my mouth.
I wrap it around me as I’m jerked up into the burning air. Cold swaying hooks. A knife pushed slowly into my heart. The dog’s head comes off in my hands.
All the flowers and beasts circle in.
A still point packed with Angels. A few pale demons chanting back. All licking.
I crawl in shit. I stare into your eyes.
I pull the cord.
I beg.