VINYL POETRY

Volume 3, May 2011

BIRDIE
Dana Guthrie MartinView Contributor’s Note

from Toward What Is Awful

after Catullus LXXI. We Give Answers Yes, there are alarms installed in our bones. Yes, there are circuses. There is only one program and we have to share. There is only one miracle, which happens every night. Yes, there is illness. Yes, there are quotas. There is fruit, rotten fruit. There are totems and ulcers; there is Ambien. Yes, we lie next to them. Yes, they excrete a dark powder. LXXXIII. The Quiet They give a presentation on plural marriage, how to maximize fellatio and minimize cunnilingus. They bring in mules and call them sacred. They misquote our obligations. We cover ourselves in sunscreen and pull the shades. We let them urinate on us. We do not notice that they are multiplying. We begin to lactate, which we also do not notice, until we do. LXXXVII. Materials List They tell us we are divided into three parts. One of which protest inhabits, another tantrum. Another what we in our own language call fidelity. They do not ask us to quantify them. LXXXIX. Add Gelatin They tell us we are tender as gelatin. They ask us to be hard matter. We insist they use sorcery to tame even the lamest among us. They make us forget our fathers, forget dissent, hand over our things of mace. They insist we be their designated lovers. We drive them to the river. For hours, they watch black geese. They keep their plans in an attaché case, alongside tangelos. They tell us we are not ready to square dance. We kneel at the edge of the dance floor. XCV. Helium Games and Cinnamon Buns They’ve been huffing Zyrtec. We watch them make a mess at Cinnebon, digging their teeth into our names. They ask to see our hymens after they receive military updates. Nothing a round of UNO won’t delay. One of them, called Hortence, shouts Copacetic! and passes out. :: The Zyrtec has caused their penises to emit light. We approach with lead mittens. Who could work though all this petrolatum? Their bodies look like dead rodents, lax and seeping. We daub them with tunics. XCVb. For the moment, we are pardoned. We coordinate the most timid among us and head out in search of guacamole. XCVII. Add Aluminum Today they smell like armadillos and coal. We strum their hair. Now, Now, they say. The mundane illuminates. They are a malady of teeth, a sequelae of habituation. Inside our uteri, we find pliers, ginger root. They tell us our name is diffuse as a tea. Tomorrow we will take the mules and go trading. What we have to give we can no longer give to them. :: What we know about ourselves: We are without qualities, as the fruit tree is without fruit in winter. We multiply each spring. We have feces and soles. We are neither pristine nor asinine. Like the possum, we agitate. We look like meat inside our lingerie. :: What we know about them we know in another language.