Wire
mother laid a wire hanger across the small of my back and while sobbing in my disheveled basement room I heard her laughing in the company of other women if anyone had seen the welts on my daughter's back they'd turn me in to child protective services more laughter she always used proper English though she could neither spell nor maintain her loose grasp on proper parenting the laughter of the women circled round to my crooked ponytails which righted themselves in angry response I apologized for having dirty hands and feet and then rode off barefoot bareback and barely ten into the hills where I sat on a granite boulder channeling a barn cat trapping and toying with a terrified lizard for half a day
Snaps
snaps he says while popping them to release my breasts yeah snaps pearly ones he doesn’t care what they look like or know that they remind me of my grandfather square dancing in pressed cowboy shirts or that I was called Johnny and my little cowgirl was lost in favor of New Wave then the Dead then Ella & Miles then back to the cowgirly later snaps he’s pleased now with the lack of effort that I’ve taken so long to employ the snaps yield to the gentle pressures against them today and tomorrow I’ll only remember redressing alone
Past Her John
if we used a chainsaw to remove the old crosses from the front garden soaking for decades in sun-bleached cedar bark and Roses of Sharon would the Church consider that unholy would the Vatican quake would our Christian rock guitarist refuse to accompany our skybound implorations if so then instead perhaps we could slowly suck them from the earth intact rolling the stone away abiding their wooden resurrections and then preserve them as the hair and bones of long-suffering saints freeing them from their sodden orifices with what shall we fill the cavities pastor gold frankincense mirth what stain for the new phallus and what of its erection does god prefer paint would you like to say a few words or sing an uplifting hymn as we appeal simplicity from excess
Ava Joe (select one):
is a trip. A trip to hell in a handbasket. A handbasket full of chokecherry muffins. Muffins.
is a man inside of a woman’s body with a woman’s emotions and thoughts and desires.
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