A REBUKE TO MY RABBIT INSTINCTS

She'll want to take the world in her teeth and shake until she tears a hunk of something off for herself.

[fungalpsalm]

WE ARE JUST MEAT

01.10.26 — zine workshop

[fungalpsalm]

LET ME OFF THE HOOK

01.10.26 — zine workshop

[fungalpsalm]

MOM AND ME

my therapist suggested i create art about my mom, about our inner children having a conversation.

you can scarcely believe it's her—

she laughed.

she laughed like a girl.

[fungalpsalm]

thawing

a person trying painfully

to remember something

trying, trying

reflecting, reflecting

[fungalpsalm]

mouth stirred with a

whispering ferocity,

lips against teeth

swollen and chalky,

eyes fixed on the mirror.

[fungalpsalm]

EDITOR’S NOTE

intent is often artificial

poetry itself is a disservice

to poetry

[fungalpsalm]

FEED ME SCRAPS

you bit down hard,

breaking skin, bruising ego.

i cowered in the corner,

fur bristled, ears low, yowling

for a mother who won’t come.

but your hand, oh your hand

reaching to meet my soft belly—

i’ll let you lick the wound

if only to be close to you.

[fungalpsalm]

MY MOTHER SAID STOP BROODING

ripping from the ground, crying

“free at last!” only to hit concrete

ceiling, not glass—solid. opaque.

“oh, the places you’ll go!” if only

the world cared for you, sweet

ground-dweller. the trees long

for your screaming song, pruned

short as manicured lawns.

[fungalpsalm]

TELEVISION

darkness breaks for d(r)awn

curtains, window frosted by

television snow.

[fungalpsalm]

CARVE IT SO IT STAYS

roots rip into soil

something feral, almost

brain matter branching

out to nurture sapling toxicity

leaves groundwater thirsting for

bacteria and greenery skimming

the membrane. rotting the timber,

gutting the head.

[fungalpsalm]

STUTTGART, ARKANSAS—MAY 10, 2008

we were watching tv when siren ate the town,

her song piercing through flashes of lightning

and guttural thunder—it only took a minute

for radio waves to confirm the wrath of her arrival.

i remember holding a stare with the family cat,

my mother too busy holding us in place

while the doors shook themselves alive

until it all went dark and smelled of gas

and tree limbs.

[fungalpsalm]

OH, DAUGHTER

mother shot out

into headlights barely lit

on gravel that shook life

to fingertips, the buzz

of a closing curtain

and a setting sunson

i felt my dad there—

holding both of our hands

as tires skid to a halt,

baby rushing to join mother

with death sitting in the road,

still warm.

[fungalpsalm]

I SHOULD STOP EATING TIME

cold chills bite into blushing cheeks, burnt

with winter and i laugh because you're blowing smoke

rings tinted with golden hues, sun reflected off ice.

stabbing into air, my index finger breaks the orbit

of frozen air wishing to be contained to singular shape,

singular space, singular time.

my hands hold us captive there, a bubbled snowscape

knitted into memory like lost mittens

left in the parking lot.

you tell me to close my eyes, to let the snow cover us.

but there's no guarantee we'll be frozen here.

train screams, first stop of the year.

conductor intrigue: since when do you smoke?

stomp cherry into concrete, drag foot to draw ash—

ask me when we're back in the winter of 2003.

[fungalpsalm]

I AM NEVER FULL

heavens danced intoxicated

by thunderheaded lust.

carnal explosion of fluorescent

lightning fingers reaching down

to caress the faces of lovers, eyes

radiating with hunger

that pulls teeth.