Joy School
for Joseph Cornell

Why is it that when people speak
of joy or paint
its substance the canvas is a vast
blue sky or an acre of snow broken
maybe by a few black boughs.

My joy teaches me small.
It is tiny and dark with delicate moving parts
in the shadows,

like the ripple of a salmon gill
under the river
or a small vintage machine
with obscure purpose and many
tinny whirrings.

My joy is not made in the huge
bright handclap of God.

It is made by tiny mice paws
in the mud. It is made of straw
and teeth,
with a few white feathers.

The Underneath
I keep a pet
woman under my bed.
She’s small
and feisty, with sharp teeth.
I make her
wear all the clothes
I hate; high heels, garter belts, clingy velour.
I feed her chocolate and wine
from a box. She glares at me
as she twirls the curling iron through her brown hair.
I let her out once a week
for a bubble bath.
When she’s PMSing
she kicks the bottom of my mattress
to keep me awake. I punish her
by taking away her cable.
She pouts,
spends all day looking at her mirror
instead of me. I get her a fist
sized disco ball:
we kiss and make up.
She’s so small
I can fit my tongue
all the way around her neck.
She tastes of vinegar and honey.
When she’s been good I let her sleep
at the foot of my bed. Sometimes
I wake up
and she’s in my mouth.
I chew her
hair softly, like a cow would,
if it had the heart of a wolf.
Then I put her back in her cage.
She cries and dresses
in white
until the moon
breaks.

There's a bug in my blog, so I haven't been able to post for a while. I just figured how to circumvent it, slightly. I hope everyone is having a merry whatever. I'm not.

okay, so I'm not headlining! Still. I'm "many others".