and I am content.

Truly told, within the conch shell
of my mind resides (with all
the modern luxuries
of course) a little gnomic

man: bespectacled, bewildered,
but brilliant. In retrospect, I have
no idea how he came to perch upon
my medulla, but there
he speaks and sleeps. Dictating

what simple etchings will travel
from one tip to another. He asks little,
just consistency (in quantity
and quality) in his diet: peach
schnapps and molten

fondue. He never forgets
that without me he has no
arms or legs. Trying to hide
his influence and allowing
the taste of fruit. However,

my prose is not my own. I had
myself surgically
removed–

 

Record No. 5 of the Mysterious Bukle Fish

Sweat-saturated and malaria-laced, I lay
in the bottom of a black,
smoke-coughing tug, plowing down

a river whose name
I can’t remember in the fever
fog. The country I can’t pronounce fidgets
and rolls in its slumber. Shrill
birds fluff themselves in my proximity.
Claims of the Bukle

territory pour
to my ear from the self-proclaimed jaded
Captain. I roll to my side, What
a crackpot. Waves

shift the boat again, but I pay
no mind. Bukle goes the cry
from the crew. I curl away. It must

be a log. Awed
cries are caught in the empty
branches above. My legs
stretch to make me see. But
all I catch is a rainbow
tail.

 

Call Me Bird One More Time

I can still feel your knuckles trace
my upper ribs over silk, tickling
in the same way your stubble breathed
against the soft under

my ear. Is waiting for me
worth it? Crinkles
beside dark circles radiate
as we spend rare nights watching

Pfeiffer and Hauer stand shoulder
to shoulder under the eclipse. I hope
seeing the day is more.