ISSUE: Spring 2012
I.
Angel, I’m drilling an edge of the island for oil,
fed your smashed piñata Tylenol, left it buckled
in the passenger seat. At the snap of my fingers,
your eyes will open, but you will recall nothing.
Angel, you turned your key, but your own lock
no longer fit it. She ate the mouse and the cat,
then ate the house! She is lowering your roof’s
heated dome over her head, waiting for her curl
to set in a salon she’s fashioned from your hard-
worked bones. You passed out from the fumes.
Now I’m thigh-deep and slick, no, sick in the pit
of her religion. She traded your eyes in for the last
Payday (stale) the vending machine had to offer.
She thinks she’s trading up prayers, she thinks
them exchangeable as wishes. She forgot deep
slots are grave plots, Angel, as are our kisses.
II.
It seems. We must. The ferry ruts the dock.
Somewhere, someone is changing the locks.
I feel you piloting the veins of the island.
I feel feral cats stir up a clutter of attics.
If they refuse to look you in the eye, you
know they are the kind of wild that wants
nothing to do with wilderness. Snow Angel,
they appear only to snap their sooty backs
beneath an engine’s heat, greased assembly
of pale flowers narrowing against a gauze
of zeroes. We, too, begin kitten-deep inside
the pocket of a mother; her electrifying fur
still moves our herd toward the boat’s prow,
because we are always wishing to land, greet.
I am punching your molecular code into my
forever panel. I speak the language of locks.
