David Mills

I Want H all of you but I ( )Ate your Guts

On your tongue the letter “H” sleeps when it should

be awake and sashays when it should sit

still. It's then that you offer me weather

that you don't want: windows of rain that are

flung open; a sky of suede cement dozing

on its navel. Here, I am sandwiched between

butterbeans and moonlight. Florida:

this country unbuttoning the sun. Soon,

you will be four cities of memory. Soon,

there will be a triangle of quiet; soon

my tongue will wonder why chocolate eyes

two eyes that blink and sizzle. Two nights

ago we passed a manhole cover painted

like bistecca florentina with tapioca bubbles.

The smoke that twined from this city's

skillet seemed to gallop over supper's room

temperature antipasto. I hope so. I so hope that life

can tell the difference between vanilla and hell.

And if love is an investigation let me suggest

a detective: then one day my insecurities

will wait in a queue so long that they

will eventually about face, know home.

Honestly,

life is a line

no one

should cut.

We cold, we cold. Sorry

we cannot

accept thoughts

of 17

dinars or less because beyond

the emporium, English

literature is a movie ticket

that should be defenestrated. My condolences

to all the furniture in the third

world and the bikini

Philistines. How cold ridge

of you. Please do not

irk a plus-sized Happy

Meal because

Santa Claus is coming to Town

Hall: Police Navidad. Police

Navidad... With a dose of opium,

Kubla conned

the age

of reason into thinking

it would think forever. If you can,

toggle your bottom

lip to some sheet music. . .

where whole

notes

stand-in for eye

sockets

their gaze pong-pings

between Porlock

and Linton: over yonder, one thousand

300

(and) twenty

feats

from Culbone.

P.A.L.I.N.D.R.O.M.E.

(after Terrance Hayes)

On a word tour, a quintet of “es” bops up & down streets 3-letters long. In Rome

they wanted more, even formed a line as long as the Nile.

A real pane in the nape some dame made us late, made our ride

to the club dire.

The car's FM dial so laid-

back the music hovers five feet in front of this coupe de chill. Made-

moiselle we rehearse backwords and forwords. And although I'm a linguistic drop-

out, do you Parlez vous bebop, its lemon lime-

light? Do you ever let your eyelashes sweep some line

-r notes? Damn, it's already 8, which is 3 eyeing itself in a mirror more

and more.

Late for the gig, my fallen cymbal: the sun KO'd, flat on its back. Dixieland.