In Mexico City inadvertently
shooting his wife in the frontal lobe
while playing a drinking game
Variation of William Tell on a bet
Requesting that she balance her wine
Chalice on the balcony of her brow
Like a beach ball and a trained seal
Standing in totemic posture ten yards away
The drapes of her eyelids hushed closed
Blinking during the family Christmas photograph
Snap of his revolver
The china-tea of her earlobes
Simultaneously registering
The click of the trigger
When the voice of God the father erupts
Through the crust of her forehead
Ribbons of diverse crimson hues
Skiing down chin and cheekbones
The pale aspirin shock of Burroughs visage
Aghast reflected in the cold puddle of life
alphabetical putty exiting her skull
a wisp of sulfur billowing over
her body like a pair of panties
half ascended up the camp flagpole
the summer when first you fell in love
Before Waking up inside Target on Valentine’s Day Eve
Noticing how everything
Is that damn red color
My thoughts circulating lost and alone
across the elliptical prostitute
lipstick smudge gritty ventricle
clotting transience of linoleum isles
Seeking freight train silence
through the aortic valves of commerce
empty parking lot cart materialism
pausing near the bus stop
wishing I had a beer
No amount of over the counter
Benzedrine shot up with Ken Kessey
Could have assuaged the
Hurt I felt that afternoon when
The cardiac tiles of my chest
Mingled with the Asbestos of her breath
Offering hosannas in mid coitus
The moment I opened the door
Finding the arched steeple
satyr thighs and legs spread like
half-opened albino triangles
facing each other
trying to consume each other
A mason symbol of wedged bodies, stuck
Ready to come in an abbreviated pulse
As I stood in the door
The junkie eating his lunch naked and alone, I
Peeled my heart from my chest like a fresh water trout
And held it above me head
For all the world to see
A coronation of our expired dream.
When you reached in the dresser beside your bed
wielding the hard steel of a weapon instead
saying “Trust me. I’ve done this once before.”
