Gray oily shield. Thin legged
army tank from the tiny
stupid future. More
welcome than the roach.
If there is a wheel of life, surely
I will come again
as one. Why?
For my sins of omission,
of course. Today I with my
sleepy stinking holes and soft
genital folds naked in the morning
sun wrapped one
in some toilet paper and
peed on it and didn’t flush it
until I came from the shower
clean, handsome, glowing.
Love says Eat this boiled egg,
I’ve salted it for you.
But moon is listening
through the wrong end
of the megaphone.
Birds sing go
fuck yourself,
go fuck yourself.
And soul says oh no
we’ll never scrape these
hearts off the windshield.
So love carves
a block of ice
into a bust
of Abe Lincoln.
Moon doesn’t go
for compliments.
Birds have to fuck
on the hard ground.
And soul flies on a zip line
over heart’s fence, home.
Love blows
the bug spray out of her nose.
Moon bleeds and keeps
on bleeding
until soul take his foot off
the dead bird,
pumping its ribcage lightly,
testing its heart song.
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo.
I’m at the wheel of the old man’s car
and he’s in the back seat, and there’s a state worker
lady in a yellow vest stopping traffic
about half a football field away and the old man
has started moaning like I’ve never heard
before and says his left arm hurts bad, says his
armpits feel like they’re on fire.
He’s got the hair too, the old man,
but he’s always had the barber trim his
and can’t understand why I would “cultivate” mine.
He doesn’t go for the Greek philosopher look neither
and loves to trot out that Marine bullshit
in his Foghorn Leghorn voice, “Why would a man
farm on his face what grows wild
on his ass?” He’s just mad
because mine is longer. He can’t
understand why I won’t go
around these cars, neither. Sometimes
I pull on the hair which is strong
as a bread tie. Sometimes in the morning mirror
I say Hello, hair and wink one time.
Now the old man is wheezing about blowing
the h—h—horn. The problem is, other than pointing
at the TV to tell me I ought to get a job
on QVC, Dad’s got no hobbies.
That’s what my wife says.
But then she doesn’t like my hair
either. And last night in bed
she wouldn’t kiss me because of
the pictures of me and my hair in Wednesday’s Dover Post
—it’s always something. Tomorrow I got an interview
with Matt at University Auto Sales—
he saw the article and read that I was
“currently seeking employment”—this will be the first
interview where I haven’t had to use
my Modelco skin colored wax to smooth
the hair down. Or maybe I ought to
smooth it down—I’ll ask Mom what she thinks.
She has a couple of long nipple hairs,
not world record long but long enough
to stick out of the top of her blouse
at the breakfast table this morning
to make me spit up my oatmeal and really
piss off Dad. Matter of fact, that’s when he got
huffy which led to me and him sitting here
in this crapping traffic. Oh, I’ve seen Mom’s hairs,
alright. She said they started to grow like that
when she was nursing me.
I could shoot down the side of the road. I can see
the old man’s shoulders heaving
in the backseat through the rearview
mirror, looks like he’s trying to sit up
or something. And now that I’m looking
at the hair in the rearview
I see it’s smart, actually, I’ll leave it
like this tomorrow, see what happens.