from self-published collection Misreckon (Dec 2014)
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/misreckon/paperback/product-21954246.html
-finds-
electric chair
for a discontinued
mermaid.
heaven, as captured
in the near
death
experience
of your
decoy.
by a grief counselor
turned
author
pop-up
books
on penile
implants. a pair of gloves
for god’s
hand.
ultrasound
of a hermit’s
mother.
Nagasaki.
-the clock-
the woman wore goggles and held a fork.
I was pushed
up a hill
in a stroller
by a lover
of snow.
in her books of bookish loss
her knees
are a nightmare
had
by the fork.
her man
shovels
his madhouse
meal.
-banshee-
the baby’s appetite for its birth is jaw-dropping. in store for god, we have nothing in the house.
-advanced-
she drinks to the image I have of myself as a naked man on roller skates who continues to have the fistfight he’s late for. she drinks to toast the pain she says she stole from a pregnant unicorn during a longer than usual drought of immersion. people keep us together because they are bored. when sober, she returns to them the delirious boy who on his bedsore back carried a pair of skis throughout the only entire summer of his youth. from her father’s memory she eats for the both of us without touching her food because her mother was the bulimic god could taste.
-losses-
when brushing them, she asks god
for help
her teeth
are puking.
later, when caught
smoking,
she says
she can’t
keep
from wanting
the cigarettes
to be
shy.
because of who she isn’t
I’ve had to baptize
many
dolls.
-system-
as spotless as the dog left it, the baby’s room has come to mean today. above a different dog, people ask us what we’re having. we do our jigsaw of darkness. clone the ape that created god’s boredom.
-dosage-
due to
a propensity
in each
to apply
face paint
while disoriented
my father
routinely
changes barbers.
because I believe
in the apocalypse
I swallow cologne
to silence
my blood.
it should be harder
to be happy.
I give you my sister
who has tried to flush
her prosthetic
nose.
I was alone
with the baby
when the baby
said god
in awe
of my father
being
in awe
is habit
forming. I want
invisible
beast
my fingernails
back
for the error
of the foot
the feet
are punished.
the ears
call
but nothing
answers.
one hand
is a hand, the other
the hand’s
map.
the second machine
though equally
godless
deepens
our understanding
of the first. mother
under
the dinner table
that doubled
as the operating.
I am half
the survivor
I ate for.
I took my son to a bowling alley and gave him an egg.
my daughter’s sense of touch
was so delayed
she lost sleep
thinking
of all the things that had turned into her hands.
communion was god’s plan to leave heaven.
at birth, your life flashes before your eyes. you have a brother and with him think that if one could record the exact moment of your mother’s dying, her death will disappear. the drink in your glass is made from the skin that couldn’t bring itself to be your mouth. some of it is crying but most of it is putting the word fuck in its place. out of necessity you create a crow that you might be warned of its crow-like replacement. your hands stick to what they know.
you strike me as an invasive listener. I love your body. loving mine doesn’t mean I’m not okay wearing too many clothes. does this make me look alone? like, crucifix-on-the-dashboard alone? my mother fell for my father because he couldn’t find a finger to write with. horror movies lift me from poverty into a long period of healing followed by a jump scare. earlier, before you bled into a corncob, my brain had you as a spider spinning an infant. if it pleases god, I’d like to go somewhere time hasn’t been.
our impossible guest, the inventor of vicarious living
mom would start in on god so fiercely that we became preoccupied with doors. we got to saying and I’m taking the baby with me at the close of anything said with passion. by the time our speaking allowed for speaking parts, you’d think a cameraman had asked to use the bathroom. father had his moments. being thin is an adventure. this egg has given me an idea for a different kind of chicken.
agewise, I was closer to my parents than most of the kids I knew of.
