the dodo's conondrum

And you levitate

So slowly

That your tongue

Laps across the night sky

Pulling the stars from the

Dark, sticky universe and

Replacing them with

Tears that never got a chance

To fall from wistful eyes

On a listless face

In a shameful collapse

 

Once you reach the ground

You soar

Two and a third inches from hell

Wind and bacteria metaphors

Between body and soul and gravity

 

Finally landing is the death of a century

Of cold wars and winds and glasses of

Citrus water

That burns your tongue and

Dehydrates salty pores

She’s so ugly

Fat

Dry

Bitter/free/god she’s sick JUST STOP

 

Your stuttering doesn’t

MEAN

Anything

When fate is in your realm of palmy

Fingers

Don’t pull at your lips and

Gawk at the strangeness of the world

Because it’s MY-NEWT

Compared to the red lips of the universe

Summer dresses soaked in snow

Stains on shaved legs

Of wet grass and menstrual pinkness

 

You have the power;

The moral instability to shake the earth

And we all rest then as princesses.

Even the pedophiles and the arsonists

And old men who stare at whales,

Chapped teeth cursing like a sailor

At the mammal’s healthy endowment

 

So keep up kids

Stick to the stars

The galaxy and the sleeping birds

Barking in bark-free trees

You’re not going to find heaven with your feet

In the dirt.