you bring a dull grey
to a boil and spice it
on weekends, dump
a horde of red creatures
on a table in the suburbs,
and tearing them apart,
pulling their single intestine
out and flicking away
the tube of dirt, is tradition. a hound
is deaf, though, and
the local color is red
with veins of yellow.
the watermeter caps
the sewer and is thread
binding the roads
to our houses.
the tunnel connects
our kitchens, needles
of chlorine which
wash our bodies,
and runoff from
the flat and barren
miniature plains of
the dead.
bury me in snakeskin
shoes if I stand pat,
newspaper and twine
if I am debt collected,
I guess.
Refrigerators grow
out of a field, hanging
open, and ugly people
come here to be
beautiful. The horn
players had a tryst
but were washed to
Houston. Life is merry
and ominous, all smiles
and storms, in sinking cities.
