Segment in Stained Glass
Sheryl tells me hummingbirds
fight over red syrup
meant to taste like nectar, and love
playing in the rain.
In a prism of artichokes discussing the possibility
of guardian angles and arranged marriage.
Olivia says the elk’s bugling is like the opening of a giant metal door. Soon she will leave us
for a better job. A job where she teaches people to feed one another.
A certain percentage of plants are killed every year by the weight of the fruit they bear.
It’s been weeks since I’ve called my mother. Craig counts disingenuous smiles and chases
30-foot waves in the hurricane.
I’m talking on my back. I’m talking to the little brown mice scrambling above my dreaming and wading through the expensive sectors of my cupboards. They eat my bread. They eat my mug wort. I admire them and maybe everyone else wants a tail too.
An abandoned tomatillo home is fragile and empty, like a lantern of lace. My only pet goldfish jumped out of the bowl and died. That’s a lie, it wasn’t a bowl, it was an opaque green bucket. I’m sorry blub. I call my mother.
A beaver builds a dam in a river or a kitchen.
There is always a flood coming.
The night before you get on top of me
you smoke delicately naming facts I won’t check
apparently when an owl flies, its wings are silent
regardless of the destination or the prey.
Criminal Minds Song #2, What Happens in Mecklinberg…
I’m not proud of surviving.
Children never pay for torture.
Where is the toothpaste going with you?
Doors open and doors close.
Inside the monkey is a ringing,
an indistinct song masquerading as police radio chatter.
The real rage is just a hobby.
My face like a question mark, next to a face like a question mark.
No abnormalities, a.k.a. no mystery men.
Today 19 strangers came into my room chanting,
“tonight it will rain, tonight you’ll be lured out.”
Did you see what I did? I mocked the broken window.
Volunteer for negative feelings, surrogacy is an honorable calling.
Screaming always follows the whip cracking,
but the sirens
can split.
A decoy lights a church candle and goes, “oop!”
A bookshelf hides a secret
a hallway leading to secrets of perfect hair.
Albert Einstein swung by and stayed close,
but he doesn’t understand anything.
Severed sirens sing along sing along sing,
staring into space and touching arms.
I’m sorry I smell like saliva. I’m sorry for syncopating
but the house is creaking hard, shh…
…I’m a doll in another person’s house.
Cheryl is not your mother. Cheryl is extraordinarily lucky.
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frankie bb is a map of eyes that have yet to assemble into a crowd, a jaw bone that dislikes being called "mandible" and prefers "crescent catcher." A guilty harvester who believes milk is best served wild. Words in and forthcoming: No Contact Mag (as frankie bruno), The Lickety-Split, Club Plum Literary Journal, and Maudlin House.