Fireflies

A glow worm illuminates the cavern of your ear

until a raven plucks it out, gulps it down. 
Beams of light burst from its nostrils, 
spill from the hairline cracks in its beak. 

I grab the bird by its feet, hold it before me like a lantern

as I pick my way through the pewter thicket,

carefully stepping over the bony roots.

Metal claws scrape the flinty paths

of the empty creek beds, sparks flashing 

in the shadows on either side. But I do not run, 

and eventually reach the clearing,

where only the closest tips of sedge are visible,

shimmering blades that scatter like minnows

when I swing my feathered beacon back and forth
then hurl it in an arc across the blackened meadow.

When I hear it catch the wind, a snapping kite,
I collapse into the soft, wet grass, 

turn my head and wait for a glow worm 

to twist its way into the shelter of my ear. 
I lie there on my back in the rain
and close my eyes

and listen for your footsteps.

Space Needle

As we sit here at Bauhaus Coffee on the hill,

the Space Needle grimaces at us through the glass,

its lid painted its original perky orange 
to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary, 
a retro futuristic lamp standing in front of an inky curtain

of early evening clouds. I gently run a hangnail

down your bare shoulder, tracing the boom

of your wrecking ball tattoo.A potted palmetto 
makes jazz hands at us, trying unsuccessfully 
to grab our attention.

Down in the muck of the amphibious city,

you tickle me with your gills, as on the wharf,

our slimy pink compatriots curl up like fists on beds of ice,

or are flung like floppy disco balls between the fishmongers.

Your inner arms are laced with scars, with rows 
of stitched closed lips.Your wrists dazzle 
with pearls that glow like teeth, 

like little moons sinking through the plume of silt

that billows up around us when we hit bottom.

We burrow like flounders into Puget Sound mud,

dreaming of fish that dart like rockets between the legs of the piers,

oysters that spin like saucers, dragging their nets behind them

like wedding veils as they blast off

into the soundless sea of outer space,

leaving constellations of bubbles in their wake
and leaving us behind, stitched together down there 
in the sludge beneath Seattle, ignoring all those fleshy morsels

that dangle close enough to kiss, knowing that

the prize embedded in every one

is merely a hook.

Lady MacGuffin

You kept your bottles of nail polish
jumbled inside a turquoise chest of drawers

on top of which perched a cast of the Maltese Falcon

you'd purchased from a thrift store years before.

Scars criss-crossed its black veneer,

exposing the chalky plaster underneath.

The film was on TV last Saturday evening.

I sat alone and watched it from my couch,

slathered in the achromatic glow, downing

tumbler after tumbler of bottom-shelf scotch 

to make myself forget that you were gone
and still would be tomorrow and tomorrow

lacquering my talons with filched obsidian.

The liquor made it difficulty to stay within the lines, 
the shaky brush kept slipping from the nail. 

The vapors caused my skull to start to spin

just as the dark heart of the story is exposed;

when, cradling that chunk of feathered lead,

Bogie mutters those wrenching final words.
You know what they are. Stripped of fury, 
signifying nothing. Sockets hollow and dead.

His gravelly voice so bitter, so resigned.

I hate admitting it, my love. I cried.

New story on that other blog I sometimes post stories on!

I know, I need to get a little faster at these. It's been nearly a year since the last one.

Anyways, bon appetit and all that. Don't forget to wash your hands afterwards.

The Slime Net

Putty (W.H.)

You are touchingly walleyed, 
your wobbly pupils peering out through the holes

in your stretched-out rubber mask of a face.

You brush a few limp strands of your raven feather wig

from your chalky forehead.Your skin, 
hanging loose on your skull, reminds me 
of my earliest nightmare, in which 
my mother stood at the kitchen sink,

her face turning to white paste

and dripping into the sudsy dishwater.

My most recent bad dream was just last night. 

I was trying to buy religious icons from a South Philadelphia shrine

with paper money that turned out to be a wad 
of elaborately etched counterfeit twenty-four-dollar bills.

I don’t know why it was so horrifying, but I awoke in a cold sweat. 
The night before it was Whitney Houston, or rather,
a cake molded to look like her, in a red strapless dress
and frosted crimson lips.

My apologies; it’s true what they say, there's nothing quite so boring

as someone else’s dreams. 
Don’t leave, though. Frightening though your features may be, 
I’m still mad for your lazy gyrations,

your scuffed pumps and bunched stockings, 
and I will flick crumpled twenty-four dollar bills at you

to flutter at your painted toes all evening

even if I’m certain any words we say to each other

will plop to the floor, where we will probably slip on them.

Oh, hell, I’m no good at small talk. I'm smitten with you.

I'll follow you anywhere you go, join in on whatever

harebrained crime spree you plot for us.

If you want, baby, I’ll even try my best to become a character in
your favorite recurring nightmare.

Plank

My Dearest P.,
Sorry I haven't written lately.
Been busy navigating these perilous straits, 
plowing through choppy chum-laced waters
with a spyglass jammed into my eye socket, and 
a cold glass of undrinkable liquid sweating
in my hand. Sometimes I get tired of the effort it takes 
to stitch these tattered sails together.
Wooden pegs. A wick of twine
spiraling down one's neck. Burning bile. Acid reflux.
A worm of wax curling down a rope. 
The corkscrew I forgot about in bed
and rolled over onto
is still jammed up there somewhere, clicking
against the broken sextant. 
Hope is an icy splinter I chomp down upon
and curl my lips around, saliva squirting
from the corners of my mouth as the ship
spins circles in the middle of this sea of snarls.
Sky of powdered charcoal, waves of frothy curd.
Lightning lashes the mast, garlands the pole
with twists of knotted luminescence. 
The small hairs on the back of my neck 
stand up and smolder, crackle with static electricity
...or something like that. You know how it is.
We load the cannon, lob iron spitballs at the clouds,
knowing it changes nothing. 
Give my love to the children and the pets,
if you haven't been driven to devour them yet. 
Best wishes,
S.

Enola Gay

     At first glance, the scene looks peaceful: a placid pond shimmering in a verdant meadow. But on closer inspection you can see that the air is swarming, the water teeming with acts of violence. The general squats on his round flat dais, croaking orders into the spiky microphone of a floating blossom. All around, segmented biplanes buzz on transparent wings. Dive-bombing damselflies are picked off one by one by a snipe hidden in the reeds. Mosquito larvae hang suspended just beneath the surface, wriggling with impatience, eager to unsheathe their bayonets and join the fray. In the depths far below them, an armored submersible lurks in the thick gloom, waiting to rise from below to snatch another bobbing frigate from the duckling armada. The pacifist fish hope that if they remain motionless they will evade the piercing shell of the egret torpedo. Fascinated by the skirmish, you lean forward and slip on the muddy embankment. The explosion of your body smacking the water causes a brief cease-fire, as the battalions scramble to escape the resulting tidal wave that pummels the shore, casting the water striders into the grass and flooding the muskrats from their trenches. Sadly, the impact is not enough to end the battle for domination of this tiny body of water, this strategically useless puddle, and the tiny creatures are soon back at work, doing their best to annihilate one another here in these wetlands of mass destruction. 

Grail

A McDonald’s take-out bag has hurled its guts,

strewing its contents like the innards of a squashed rabbit

across the sidewalk. Its wadded paper organs mingle 
with scattered fries and condiment packets.  
When we were young, my brother and I,
having finished our Happy Meals and already bored 
with the apathetic prizes that came inside

would squeeze all those little bladders flat,
mixing their contents together in a paper cup:
mustard, mayonnaise, "fancy" ketchup, 
stirring in a splash of cola, plopping in the pickles plucked 
from our flaccid cheeseburgers. Then, giggling like mad scientists, 
we’d dare one another to swallow the concoction. 
 I would give anything to sample one of those noxious cocktails again,

just so I could watch my brother break into paroxysms of hilarity, 
so I could once again listen to him cackle 
at the way my face contorted with disgust,
even as I declared the stuff delicious.

I'm certain that a single taste 
would transport me back to my childhood

more efficiently than a nibble of Proustian pastry ever could. 
Although I'm not sure I could bring myself 
to actually swallow the questionable digestif,
nostalgia goads me to revisit that moment
where nausea gives way to anticipation
as I smack my lips and pass my brother the chalice.  

Manna

         The angels are gobbling their steak rare, worrying the meat like wolves then gulping it down without chewing since, after all, they don't have any teeth. They dab the corners of their mouths with napkins made of stitched-together foreskins. They wiggle their toes in delight beneath the tablecloth, occasionally kicking the cherub-crabs that scuttle about their feet, clicking at the bits they drop. They flick peas at one another across the table with their spoons, dip their paws in fingerbowls filled with holy water. They guzzle soda pop to fuel their belching contests, hoping to catch the attention of any saintly agents who might happen to be in the vicinity and who could stop by to listen and nod in approval, perhaps even offer them a contract. They slurp oysters from the shell, as well as the occasional fetus. They gorge at the golden trough, trying to sate their eternal appetites. Occasionally one eats so much it bursts, its guts raining down upon the earth, where we sinners snatch it up, a bucket of chum tossed out over the deep.