The hangnail moon
Bone silver and shining
Beads up around the shoulders
Of the dead laid out
Along the divide.
Their spider webbed
Cataracts glint coldly
Steel carriages clutching
Rain in their moldy teeth
She should be sleeping as
The thin light
spears the windshield
stretches with the rolling frame
snaps away then
we are speared again
by the next lamp
mile after mile.
She should be sleeping
But she works A safety pin
deliberately
through the side of a can.
“Usually when they send us Up
to The penthouse
we are dealing with class.
Japanese businessmen,
Music execs,
High end salesmen,
but this little prick
was sittin’ up there,
pretty as you please.”
The can crinkles in her hands
She forms a cup
Around the lattice worked pin holes
Bending the thing
Into art,
Slightly shaking
with its magnificence
admiring her craftsmanship
“He was young,
Naked to the waist
in nothing
But boxers.
He had a pile of rocks
in front of him like Everest
I could almost see
them presidents’ faces
You know?”
She meant Rushmore
But I understood.
The solid line wavered
Double then dotted on the right
Line……line…….line
Rushing up to the hood
Then falling away behind
As we crawled along
“So he just sits there
On the sofa,
Sucking on that glass dick
Holding his breath
And talking to me
Before breathing that sweet
White smoke into my face.”
The lights become trees.
The city falls away
chased by those
yellow lines
rushing back
melting into it’s stone
skeleton
“So I’m standing there
In front of him
And through clenched teeth
he says
‘How can you do
What you do
And look at yourself
In the mirror?
Exhale, suck
How do you sleep
At night?
Exhale, suck
How do you look
Your kids in the face?
Exhale, suck
How do you manage
to keep from slicing
your wrists open?
exhale, suck
Whore?’
The foothills grow
Up under our wheels
Clouds drape
The muted moon
Fog slices into the headlights
I flick the beams
Down to low
“I stood there
And took that shit
From the little prick.
His hands were going numb
I could tell
He kept knocking them hard
Against his knees, working them
Spastically, God
There’s no telling how long
He’s been up there blasting
Rock after rock”
The engine bubbles
Happily pouring us
Onward.
Streamlined
We push through the dense night
Gripping the asphalt numbly
“After an hour
He said we were done.
I could either have the hundred
We had agreed upon
Or this”
She holds up the vial
And rattles it.
More than Either of us
has ever owned
It glows white
in her Fingers,
those happy little Rocks
tumbling around
Sweetly slapping the sides,
Crystalline Heaven there
in her painted claws.
There is a lot more
Than a hundred dollars
Bouncing around
Inside that tube.
She drops
One of the bigger chunks
Onto the pin holed can
Passes the blow torch over it
And sucks from the tab
Holds it inside her lungs,
Says through clenched teeth
“So just before I left
I asked him
‘aren’t you gonna fuck me?’
And he said
Exhale, suck
‘I already have’
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Submission Name: untitled
