1.
Someone asks
if I like the number three
because of the holy trinity.
I shake my head no,
three times.
2.
I forget to mention
I was kicked out
of children’s bible study
for asking if the other kids knew
it wasn’t a literal resurrection.
It kept me up at night.
3.
I don’t pray to zombie Jesus.
He walked on water,
that surely wasn’t clean.
He only lived twice,
and three is the best number.
he’s sunshine and storm
warning, but his eyes are always
the most placid blue. I imagine
he’s never wild, always mild-
mannered. knows just when to flash
that captivating smile, and how
to look straight at the camera
with concern, so we’re clear
that it’s serious, his voice sultry
as the hottest day of summer.
to be honest, I envy his wife
her nights, and her days
spent without worry of what good
old tom is up to, what he’ll do
next because of his best quality:
the ability to avoid saying
the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Outside Kroger, a woman beats fists against car window
to wake her old dad locked in, engine thrumming
to the blare of the afternoon race. “It’s okay,”
she says, pausing to each passers-by.
“He’s just sleeping.” Oblivious, he moves
a hand to shield his eyes, unweilding
to daughter’s knocks, her shaking
the car with all her weight. I can’t
stop watching from my car, imagining
catastrophe: the ice cream melting, meat spoiling
in the unseasonable sun. For all I know,
he’s still resting there, and his daughter
took a cab home. As for me, uneasy–
I just left without any groceries at all.
A cruel beast of a man,
lingering like bitter whiskey
unwanted in the still air,
speaks to a waitress,
a girl.
He is hungry.
With big eyes, he tells her how small she is,
the way her work-issued shirt hugs her figure,
hides nothing. (Her manager didn’t see the need in the freedom
of a bigger size.)
Yet she holds no hunger,
no desire to change the menu he’s holding in his hands
(which she rips in half when she’s alone).
For she is a beast-tamer,
has been since she was a child.
She carries her mother’s rape whistle around her neck
and keeps it tucked under her shirt during the shift.
(She doesn’t want to upset anybody.)
She knows that she serves an animal;
she knows the uselessness of lecturing one.
Instead, she takes one of its bones
and sets it on her kitchen table.
She teaches her daughter how to sharpen it,
how to fight with it,
how to kill.
And she hopes.
She hopes the beasts will evolve
and there will be no more killing.
Let me not tell a tale, nor proffer deceit.
I’ll speak truth of a sweet summer thrill
aside slow Rio Tejo, just beneath
Ponte 25 de abril.
Under the watchful gaze of Cristo Rei,
a kit of pigeons, portly and plump, flocked
my feet eyeing my indulgence that day –
pastel de nata I had again opt.
That cinnamon-dusted sweet custard tart
had pleased my palate each foregoing day.
Lisboa, she stole this poor poet’s heart
despite her birds that pirate treats away.
For then, I chose not to record the crime.
Now resonant, I pluck it ripe from my mind.
Playground Tyrant
A bully moved in next door:
a mean, malicious monster.
He gave me a black eye,
and took my lunch money.
The mirror doesn’t lie;
my bruise is “blue violet.”
Not a good color to wear
on a person’s face.
I’ve done bad things.
I’m no saint.
Erasing my valiants though,
Is adding to hate.
It doesn’t relate.
Make no mistake.
I will fight to go on.
Through vagrants and advanced hustling hooligans.
Hold fast to my song,
There is truth in this,
Tubulular creedence
Ask later,just exhist.
Average rehashing of a name sake,it doesn’t matter anymore for god’s sake.
When it does,who pulls the strings?
