Yesterday, 04:01 PM
Real Hair Don’t Melt
Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls
around like a roaring lion, looking for someone
to devour. —1 Peter 5:8
Once again Penelope is eating my tomatoes, the pink
guffaw of her remorseless gluttony alarms me
from my bed and into yet another sheet
of dripping disappointment. It’s raining
in the backyard, but
not out front, which makes sense
if you think about it: dipping the oar backward
makes the boat scoot off ahead. A schooner is often
said to cut through water but it’s more like folding, whistling
through your gap tooth, or continuously
braiding hair. People don’t see movies for
the kiss, we want Godzilla. Eat your heart out, Humphrey. When I was a little
girl, I dreamed of having a sweet pig to call
my own. Griselda would be pot-bellied, with silk lashes
like custard and she’d have a golden mane which I would pass
the hours when I wasn’t being slowly murdered
by myself weaving into baguette plaits. To be clear, Penelope
is nothing like this dream. Her kingdom is all rage
and jowls, a bowling over you don’t even realize
has happened, only that the sky is suddenly
where your shoes used to be. Godly Mrs. Helsaple,
bird-dogging her apricot
Brown Betty cooling on the sill is famously still sore
about her hip, and will be until
she mercifully dies. She forgets her home address, which pill
to take this morning, and her seventeen
grandchildren’s names, and her husband
passed away and it was days before
she noticed, but a quarter or a grudge that woman
clings to like a nose ring. I’d love to give
Penelope a good piece of my brain, an apple ripe
with maggots. Does my despair mean nothing
to her, I ask with my hands spread
like a pussy—alas, my doe-eyed axman has no word
for that which we call sadness, or anything like shame. Some days
she is fed to bursting, some nights she goes hungry. It always goes
the same: each time I slide the shed door open, she pricks up her ears
as if expecting death and grins.
Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls
around like a roaring lion, looking for someone
to devour. —1 Peter 5:8
Once again Penelope is eating my tomatoes, the pink
guffaw of her remorseless gluttony alarms me
from my bed and into yet another sheet
of dripping disappointment. It’s raining
in the backyard, but
not out front, which makes sense
if you think about it: dipping the oar backward
makes the boat scoot off ahead. A schooner is often
said to cut through water but it’s more like folding, whistling
through your gap tooth, or continuously
braiding hair. People don’t see movies for
the kiss, we want Godzilla. Eat your heart out, Humphrey. When I was a little
girl, I dreamed of having a sweet pig to call
my own. Griselda would be pot-bellied, with silk lashes
like custard and she’d have a golden mane which I would pass
the hours when I wasn’t being slowly murdered
by myself weaving into baguette plaits. To be clear, Penelope
is nothing like this dream. Her kingdom is all rage
and jowls, a bowling over you don’t even realize
has happened, only that the sky is suddenly
where your shoes used to be. Godly Mrs. Helsaple,
bird-dogging her apricot
Brown Betty cooling on the sill is famously still sore
about her hip, and will be until
she mercifully dies. She forgets her home address, which pill
to take this morning, and her seventeen
grandchildren’s names, and her husband
passed away and it was days before
she noticed, but a quarter or a grudge that woman
clings to like a nose ring. I’d love to give
Penelope a good piece of my brain, an apple ripe
with maggots. Does my despair mean nothing
to her, I ask with my hands spread
like a pussy—alas, my doe-eyed axman has no word
for that which we call sadness, or anything like shame. Some days
she is fed to bursting, some nights she goes hungry. It always goes
the same: each time I slide the shed door open, she pricks up her ears
as if expecting death and grins.