I feel The desire to lie

Tell us a little about yourself. The Many-Mouthed Question rising from

maroon clay. Breathing oxygen with cellophane lungs. Fishapod limbs

furnishing the mucus cocoon. Velvet drapes and bowls of cubic zirconia.

Each cream-colored couch wrapped in plastic. What is your name? Violence

to violence to violence. A curly-headed child stomping over moors. Ringing

rabbits by the neck. Slated sky splayed out like a cadaver. Cattle prod and

beetroot. I watch the precursory reel. The women hoard cereal boxes and

wear powder under their arms. The girls congeal on shag carpets with ruffled

skirts over their heads. Facial expressions: Happy, Surprised, Necrotic.

Amphetamines and Bible study. My, you’ve gained weight, she would say,

lying on her deathbed. What I can’t remember has led me to determinism–

Lilting from fathers’ smoky lungs to Mississippi Delta overflow. I feel the

desire to conceive worlds. After the esteemed works of man are condensed

into sediment & history goes mute. Before my mind’s geography is excavated

by callused hands that carve past pain into words. Where I am a worthy

daughter and he bakes desserts with love. Each Sunday is spent hidden from

God at the edge of creation. Where a hay bale is only a hay bale and sunsets make us cry.