Excalibur

You took the bus from 39th
to 127th to get to the best
corner store in town, the one
that carries both Cow Tales
and alligator jerky, as well
as the occasional batch
of roast crickets. Gotta get
your protein any way
you can find these days,
what with the anemia caused
by the vampire family
who visits you every night. 

Sometimes they just sit
around the living room
with acoustic guitars
and play Noel Paul Stookey songs
(their rendition of “Right Field”
is exquisite), but more often
it’s teeth and blood and you’ve tried
to explain that meat is hella
expensive right now. 

It doesn’t do a thing.

So it’s back on the bus, bags
in hand. You pop a few crickets,
offer a handful to the drunk guy
in the seat behind you.
Turns out he doesn’t like sour cream
and onion. Oh well, more for you.

Mukbang

He gets up, puts on his slippers.
Goes out to the kitchen. Morning
paper thumps against the back porch.
The stock page is no more
comprehensible than it was
last Wednesday, and the weather
forecast is identical. The neighbor’s
cat stops in to say hello, goes off
to do whatever cats do while the grass
is still wet. He looks out the window
towards the sun on the horizon.
Today, he says to himself. Today
I will open my mouth and sound
will come forth. Today I will leave
my driveway. Today I will look
at the clouds and discern a shape.
Today I will read the instructions
on the Q-Tip box. Today I will climb
onto my roof and mount a flag
that says “some of us love pickles”.

Slipped in the Crunchy Jif

The missiles do their ballet over
the last known site of Atlantis,
complain when they don’t get
their hazard pay even though
they, we, and everyone else knew
that whole National Emergency
shtick wouldn’t hold up in a court
of eels. We asked each other
between the biggest booms why
everyone talked about peaches,
why we couldn’t do apricots
or nectarines for once, or even
those darling UFOs. We were
tasked with building a fort
from the pits, were told it would
either make us thin or kill us.
We stopped off at the bookstore
first, spied on the guys
in business suits only there
to pick up stray librarians,
but always ended the night going
home with each other, then it was
off to the woods, the fruit, the bread
which passeth all understanding