as soon as the rain stopped and the cloud

zippered his pants.

Theirs was a fair

assumption that the wind

and the drizzle may optimize

the catching of a few z’s

with lassos. The swallowtails

dozed, but the mosquito hawks, butterfly nets

in hand, were sapient, sentient, just like

the trio riding bareback

through the greening grass,

the ozone heavy air.

The three palomino sleeps

were fine specimens indeed,

when the trio say them,

a bronco, philly, and colt,

& wrangled them promptly.

As the horse snoozes were led away,

the swallowtails awoke & the

mosquito hawks resumed

their most unnatural chase.

.                 to coercion, swaying

wildly between certain

platitudes & dispositions.

.       I reveled in hellish

.                behavior with an

easy kinship to my

other animals. Other animals

.       hold still their trenches, but

.                even now my foxhole

lies vacant as I cannot

repent my relentless addiction,

.                                                          the moon.

.       at summer camp & the children

.       were cloning their mothers

when the counselors turned off the machines.

They tried to start the children

.         on candle-making and ceramics,

.         but the children

would only say they were homesick

& out of clean socks.

.         We need out mothers,

.          they said, but we can make them

now & not the other way around.

Moderated and self-enclosed, you operate

.        your lonely beautifully. It is sick

.                 how ornate

yet desolate

.        you are. The freight

.                 you carry knows it.

.

So what if you had a hunch for

.                        sheltered privilege?

If it is the giddy world of wedding rice you abhor,

.        don’t expect twine and branches to nudge

.                  their way into that tightly-knit package

.                         when your being is a crutch.

.

.                         I might just stay

out here forever, warding

.        off your maker I saw flying

.        through the open screen door, watching your cargo decay,

leaving you a sty.

over Charlemagne thumbsucking

.                     under his electric blanket,

the angriest bead of sweat dripped

off my nose

.                     onto the electric cord.

.

Promptly frying Charlemagne.

.                    The faux pas of faux pas.

I even made Marie Antoinette’s hair

retreat back to strawberry-blond.

.

.                   I hightailed it out of there

once Bonaparte & Robespierre

came after me with the latter’s guillotine.

Needless to say, I no longer felt

.                  welcome, so I retreat

back to the haven of my bastardized

New Orleans, America. Tail

between my legs.

brother he was a test

tube baby happened

to be the date of my first

smooch.

.

It was naïve enough

.                but too sudden for my

taste, like a spontaneous

collision of noses,

spectacles to skull.

.

The teacher caught a whiff

of our unripe pheremones

.               wafting out of

the unisex bathroom.

I presumed her

.

Jealous. She was

a spinster with a tight

grip and long, sharp

.                nails as she led

me ear-first to the

.

principal’s office.

He sent me back,

but with a note

alerting my parent of

.               what I had done.

.

.               On the walk home from school,

my brother asked me what

I meant earlier. I said

he was grown.

“Like a flower?”

.

Sure, I told him. Minus

.              pistil and stamen.

Best to throw in some

biology. He had

yet to learn about that.

.

He kicked a poor rock

up the street. “Why

.               would Mom and Dad

do that?”

Because

.

they could make you without

kissing. That was a plus.

I shoved my hand

in my pockets, fingering

.             the note from the principal.

do Puritans dare to make it,

.

that is, love. A sound argument

considering the strict precedent

.

established by a couple arks

and covenants from which faith starts.

.

Ten rules come storming two-by-two

downhill to pure teens in throes

.

at once both

visceral and electric.

Involuntarily. Wolves howl

to little else but the immobilized

night. The arrested moon.

.           She changes us

to monsters or makes us

alive. The terra cotta

courtesans cater

to the living.

.           Exclusively. And when I think

of you, I ache.

.          Little comfort comes

from a connect-the dots

theodicy.

.         I try

to justify the ways of

lonely nights

to man.

.      No symbiosis here. I solicit

trinkets to an Unmoved Mover

long after the girls have gone to bed.

A little more lonely, a little

more fun.

.                stained collar. He says

a drink is a drink, but only

.                so an hour. Then

.

it is an oil spill.

.              Among tainted waters, two

lives as two birds

.              preen what little plumage

.

they have left to salvage.

.              His delusional peacock

fixation proves

.               fruitless:

.

when self-contained,

.                  a coward of spectacular standing is

a chicken prepared with those infamous

.                  11 herbs & spices.

arrives in little kicks,

.                                   brief spurts

of volatile light prompted

.                                        by trivial bastards.

Bug zappers choke

.                                the blasted

gasps like noseums, & with malevolent volition.

.

Post-thunderstorm. The air is now mostly ozone,

.                                                                                    void

of nocturnal utterances, & in the May breeze the rocking chair

does its thing while listening intently for the

.                                                                            barren

clinks of the forsaken porch swing.