Bananas on the Brain

Paper Wasps

72810

Discounts in Valhalla

Red stitching zigzags along the edge
of the beige elastic ribbon wrapped
around my swollen foot 
propped on the wooden bench 
in the middle of the mall.
A row of teeth, a jagged path,
an erratic graph.
I clutch my cappuccino, 
scorching even through the cup holder,
and lean my crutches against the rail
overlooking the lower level of the mall
with its fountains, its palms, its food court.
Robyn is in the store behind me,
returning her new cocktail dress.
I can see her through the glass.
Humanity trickles in through the revolving doors.
Consumer spending has flatlined: the couples, 
out-of-towners, teenage girls bustle about, 
bagless, here to suck the cold air
or, like me, to convalesce.
It's an easy place to get around if you're wounded,
with few obstacles blocking the wide passages.
Escalators glide to every level.
Everything looks bland, nothing to obstruct or distract. 
A peaceful tide of music soothes the crippled soul.
Even these blood-red threads seem to throb less insistently.
The sterile mannequins do nothing to quicken the pulse.
Miles of cotton gauze constrict my senses.
These hallowed halls, with their weekend sales, 
remain the perfect place for 
a failed and fallen warrior at last to rest,
to wrap his throbbing heart 
in a shroud of soothing beige.

72610: back to black and white

72310

72210

Gastropod Oracle

A squeezebox whines nasally to accompany
two snails grappling like tongues in the garden.
They are too busy impregnating one another
to ever dream of a future in which
they huddle like black tonsils in a dusty tin
on the shelf of an all-night grocery,
part of an accidental delivery
of budget delicacies; sour caviar and cut-rate calamari,
economy size tubs of pate the owner feeds to his cats.
There they will sit, their label bleached 
by the fluorescent lights, until their can is swiped 
by a couple of stoned teenagers
who pry open the lid with a switchblade
and flick the mollusks, one by one, 
through the chain link fence of the overpass
to splotch the windshields of the cars below,
causing one camper van to swerve into the passing lane
and smash its lips in a reckless kiss
against the grille of an oncoming produce truck,
sending its cargo of pomegranates 
bouncing across the blacktop.

I could perhaps warn them of their fate.
But no, I will tiptoe away 
and leave these viscous suitors oblivious,
reflected in the garden globe
as they twist with torpid ardor 
beneath the bowing leaves,
among the stones

as my accordion wheezes its stale breath
into the glistening night.

Flea Powder Footprints

A whirlwind of dry skin flakes and coarse curly hairs 
wobbles along, following your trail of smoky toe smudges
that skip like stepping stones across the barren floorboards,
criss-crossed by floury paw prints.
You've spent days flicking insurgent freckles
from your ankles, your wrists,
as the cat attempts to dislodge them from her fur 
with constant licks. The bodies 
of the wounded wriggle and twitch,
fallen warriors in this itching, gnawing war.
Outside in the yard, the bedbugs huddle in their bunkers,
the chiggers dig deeper in their foxholes 
with their fingers on their triggers,
and beneath the porch eaves, a nest bristling with bird mites
ticks like an incendiary device, counting down the seconds 
before it detonates
like the sandpapered letter in your hand,
I regret to inform you...

72010

My Career

71610

71510

71410

71310

70910

American Echo

"Jesse James was my great, great grandfather,"
he says, eyes glazed and unblinking.
His mustache droops over a caved-in mouth.
His crutches lean against the glass.
A dachshund stretches across his lap.
"Don't believe me?" he says. "I got proof."
As the bus crossed the drawbridge
he reaches into his jeans and pulls out
a pocket watch, holds it up for me to inspect.
It looks brand new, shiny.
He raises his eyebrows.
I look away.
The July Fourth fireworks disintegrate
into glittering dust over the river,
obnoxious blossoms blooming 
with merciful brevity.
He pulls out his cell phone to take a picture.
Everyone twists their necks.
The booms, the shots
follow us like bullets
hurtling down the barrel of the night.

Culvert

When we awoke, we stamped
the harried earth with our hooves
and flicked the flies from our ears,
stretching our necks over the fence
to nibble the choicest greens.
When the pasture heaved and the hillocks rolled,
we toppled,
our racks of iron ribs crushing the clover.

When we awoke, we knotted
our tiny bibs around our necks 
and flitted from hide to hide
on tiny segmented wings, alighting to lap 
at the sticky seams
until our bellies split and our juices squirted
from our armored abdomens.

When we awoke, we circled
on creaking feathers,
gulping beakfuls of bugs
that bored our stomachs into sieves,
causing us to crash
into the woolly gray husks
of the clapboard semaphores.

When we awoke, we plunged
our thirsty roots into the spongy soil,
slurping sustenance until 
the piercing frost sucked
the marrow from our stalks,
caused our supple leaves 
to crackle into dust.

When we awoke, we grew
a thousand mouths in place of eyes,
with rows of fangs for lashes
and a thousand stomachs in place of hearts.
When we scraped our chairs up to sit
at the table of the fields,
we took a bite 
and choked on what we saw.

When we awoke, we crouched
in the drainage pipe that ran 
like a sphincter beneath the road,
linking ditch to swollen ditch. 
A thin gruel of digestive runoff 
trickled across our toes
as we huddled amongst the bones
and waited for the world to finish feasting.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Here's another weird picture to celebrate. (I know, you probably would have preferred flowers.)

70710

70610

July 1st