VINYL POETRY

Volume 9, November 2013

BIRDIE
Meghan PrivitelloView Contributor’s Note

Portrait of the Artist as a Trash Can

A man holds a picture frame around his face.
He calls it Still Life with No Future.
The way ghosts can turn lights on and off
without being seen is how we try to love
invisibly. Tomorrow, I will start to disappear
from the feet up. This is biblical
the way sodomy is biblical. This is my penance
for letting a child hold my rifle without telling him
what Massacre means. A bird photobombs
a picture of my mouth as I say God it all hurts.
If you’re a halfwit, the bird is a symbol of paradise.
If you are made of booze and razor blades
the bird is a symbol of every soul you shit on
since 1984. I can hate five new people every day.
I’d send them to the cement museum in Spain.
After an hour they’d say I can no longer live
in this colorful world and a giant weight would lift
from my shoulders. I can draw three things: cupcakes,
slow animals, hearts. Try and tell me you are not
madly in love with me when I’m going through a blue
phase, when every painting I leave in your bathtub
is called The Elephant and I Will Never Forget You.