VINYL POETRY

Volume 9, November 2013

BIRDIE
Curtis RogersView Contributor’s Note

Meet me on the ice floes after class

Slip me a loop to throw me for. Boomerang of think fast.
In bladdery
tiara, I suckle melon rind thick

enough to sleep on. I spray from the flower on my chest.
Think fast.
Think of noun constellated in ruby

schmaltz. Not of shell—but of shellshock. Shotgun-length
red shoes
tiptoeing. Down your neck, without

scent, runs a talisman of juices. Without source. You palm me
a wall
to back against. Hibernated pain

pulsing behind my eyelids. Let’s say, the loveseat gives out.
Do you
take to it with oddball pills? Cherries

mugshot the coins you lose. Their pits—sag of your breasts.
Cautious. Balletic.
What a cowlick plays mast for

is in my step. Figure-eighted flight of a white vulture. Come
to me
in the same breath as you unroll.

Set up shop in hightail. Like bones-circling. Face paint on
a vulture.
Think fast. Pass for no self—for taste

behind eyelids. Feast your this or that on this: You, then
I, then
you again, piling from a car on stage.