Contributors

12/17/10

Breathless

She said I looked like an author on the back of a romance novel she’d read in grade six
As we watched the planes colliding in a beautiful ballet up above
My mother would have said: That one looks like Baryshnikov
If she hadn’t been strangled by a velvet rope, tied to four Australian Draught Horses
Let’s pretend we’re just silhouettes when the French bellboy brings our live octopus
He used to be Jean-Paul Belmondo in À bout de souffle
Don’t leave a tip, I never liked that film; even after I watched it underwater
Her heart was an old dog, me standing in the rain with my bouquet of new tricks
My horoscope said your lips tasted like cinnamon, cardamom and
The feeling of being crushed beneath the Indian Kutralam Falls
After I received the call that my unborn twins had been arrested by Sultan Kamel
For smoking opium and pretending they were the Queen’s Nightingale cages
We pictured ourselves on a meat boat on the Tigris, picking water lilies
Opening them up to release their aroma demons
Having been artificially implanted by Ted Danson’s personal attendants
I am now entwined in a secret love octagon with the airport security cavity searchman,
A single soft boiled egg pickled in placenta, and an out-of-tune violin
The night was flippant, laissez faire as if the sunset was ancient history
We lindy-hopped wearing only kielbasa sausages
To String Quartet No. 1 in A-Flat composed by John Joubert but arranged
By the killer John Joubert played by invisible crickets
Beauty so enchantingly banal that we were suddenly whipped into a salmon mousse
And fed to a one-legged jazz pianist on his birthday.

12/7/10