| Cheap Rent She -- a strange landlord
--
pointed to her chest
and said, "If you lived here
you'd be home by now"
I -- the stranger with no deposit
pointed to my chest
and said, "If you lived here
you would have to be tiny."
I think of her smart hips and the days left
before their unhinging.
Our love was redder than the eyes of Macarthur,
Our love was blacklisted and strong.
Our love was a brawl in the street with spectacles on --
eyes of butterfly knives, brass knuckle sex,
crowbar quarrels,
and the nunchukus of my mouth
which I use
with great dramatic aplomb and theatrical flash
and always end up knocking myself unconscious
This love remains as a tongueless boy in a basement
that you snuck graham crackers to.
He loved to see the glaze of your hammer
and nail polish.
You kept him alive.
He paid you with finger everytime you arrived.
One to clean your ear.
Two to check your pulse.
Then three to make an unbreakable boyscout oath.
The four for karate.
Then five so you could rest each one of his fingers
inbetween yours
like people do when they stroll
through shitty carnivals
This love reads bedtime stories to narcoleptics
allergic to wool:
This love farumphed across the streets
wazzled in the treetops
garooshed through greenhouse windows
and dizzle dover traffic cops...zzz.
We met and she told me of the brilliant in Israel
and the erotic vision of the cynic.
I tried to turn her on by talking about
skinning animals.
She kept hunting for a metaphor.
I was actually talking about skinning animals
Now I think of how I'd look in a perm
then in comes Tel Aviv of her mouth on my dirty neck
Our mouths building a jangly swamp
for a weirdo Louisiana straight-to-video thriller with senseless nudity.
She is the poster child for the Willy Wonka suicide camp.
Her stomach is a summer full of black ice cream truck hijackings
Her eyes are highway fatalities you can't stop staring at.
Her skin is rehab for sandpaper junkies.
She is my landlord
and she has lowered the rent
She points to her chest and says,
"If you lived here,
you'd be home by now."
© Derrick Brown 2003
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