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.