Veins run longitudinal lines
posing as meridians, slicing tributaries
that scar your biceps.
Due west of your right-sided
demarcation lies the heart,
caged by a mountain range,
smooth as river rocks.
I’m able to climb then,
slip in between the caves
to infect the heart.
Once in, I listen, keep your beats
between 117 and 166 for maximum
caloric burn. I listen, bringing my lexicon
in liquid form to absorb your disposition:
quietude and opposition to fighting.
I lost a day crossing
your international dateline,
over rib-caged mountain range.
Hand-holding makes me blush, warms
your palms that will later hold the metal
protractor, using my fingernails as feather pen
your mouth as inkwell. Wind the road
up my calves, around my knees,
protruding stalagmites you can hold onto.
Pulling my pelvis toward yours,
our heads point north
on the headboard-less bed.
To clutch, bring people together,
to argue hand ampersand mouth.
Back and forth, to bring away
and then swing to the opposite.
The curled figure graffities
a bathroom stall, and consecrates
relationships, only official if the names
are scrawled on a public wall.
A scarf can tie two necks together
or one to a tree branch. The lack of space
when lips press lips, as the one orifice
lacking cleanliness. Teeth sink into
flesh by accident, hand ampersand face.
Poet is another word for ampersand,
love-bite, syncopated tetrameter
you tapped on the coffee house counter.
My chair inched me forward, elbows
pointed to the table. My middle name
is ampersand; I pull words together.
A spread her legs open, propped
by a horizontal stake, pointing to Z,
who isn’t sure which way to look,
each glance mirroring A’s.
Duplicate A learns how to love Z,
blooming from the greenery of the bush
into E’s territory, bypassing L.
L never liked to be book-ended
by A on one side and E on the other.
E touched triplicate A, the last letter,
but also first. A’s sometime fought A’s
while the typewriter looked away.
L was always the troubled letter
with the unsaid line. The bush almost kicked
L to the curb, but cuddled him back
in to create azalea out of the battle
between letters, a flower newborn.
A wait nine hours long in the halitosis terminal,
Gate 6, with a turkey sandwich that was full
of salt.
Rolling carts full of mismatched luggage
strolled by plastic chairs fastened to the worn carpet
indefinitely.
Eyes boarded-up with heavy lids,
green tea filled rock-quarry throats
while each line grew
exponentially in aggravation.
Half the sandwich left,
only faking it made this line raunchier.
You wished to grab her eyes rolled onto
People magazine. That man behind you,
he clicked and unclicked his decency:
pants on, pants off, pants on, pants off.
A moan started in one corner of the mouth,
her tongue jammed up the other side,
slithering onto her left cheek.
The loudspeaker went off:
“Flight 9470 to Newark
departs at 9:37.”
Her lips smacked over
the radio, the sound of a plane landing,
its wheels grating the tarmac.
Babies don’t cry over spilled milk,
since synthetic engine oil
flows from highly evolved nipples.
“Free Botox with purchase
of glam inhaler,”
anti-aging clinics advertise,
next door to charging stations
for programmable husbands
with cigarette lighter-adapters
they could attach to while dipping
children in the fountain of health.
Oxygen carries the beauty-bug.
Even flu shots don’t guarantee
immunity from this every-moment
inhalant. Needles can add it directly
to the bloodstream, a high that makes crack-
heads put down their rocks and switch
to beauty. Lines of mothers hold babies
with asymmetrical faces, and wait
for shock therapy to echo across
the line of symmetry. Beauty
has gone viral.
Kathryn Zurlo is a cat enthusiast who enjoys baking delicious treats when she isn’t teaching English. Her poems can be found in “Black Book Press,” “Shampoo Magazine” and “Aerie” for further reading pleasure.
ISSUE:
S U M M E R
2011
MINI MAYHEM:
TALES TOLD BY
TOY SOLDIERS
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