kettle of fish

glass eyes glass red eyes red eye kettle of fish white claw

saw two eyes look back black cherry do you need

to see a menu? you would have been waiting late into

the night to see the red inside my eyes laser lights are one of

these nights i'll show you how to be the prettiest brick

in the wall stand tall and grow some to get some to

say forty dollars? yes the margaritas are twenty each

georgia peach hasn't been home in years house of tears

you grew old before your ears turned red with those

eyes digging into the back of your neck what a wreck

your mama doesn't want you home no more with a 

purple marker you paint yourself a door to some

place darker than this one to some love realer than

this one to some city bigger than this one til you

realize you never just kissed one of them and now

your eyes are red crying and touching the bar whose 

skin is purple and glowy your glitter is showy and

black cherry white claw was the cheapest in the elitist

neighborhood people were always too rude for you to

hold their hands but now there's a global pandemic

and god damn it you can't hold anyone's hand and

ayn rand grins says you weren't born individual

therapist says don't worry it's just residual trauma

mama doesn't say a thing she's been dead these ten years

and none of her fears for the future could soothe her when

they removed her from the days working toward retirement

toward paying of the appendectomy and the loans and

the weight of all the stones cast by half-dead aristocrats

with brown hearts and blue souls and black moles

growing cancerous holes leading to brains smoking

heinous thoughts like the car hood and when you understood

they were no good you kept driving to never ever ever

laid your mouth bland of expression your confession of

loneliness heavy on your lips your worry growing in

the dips of your smiles gone now fingers white on the

wheel replaying a film reel of your life and your wife

and your second wife and that knife that you gouged

your eyes out with so you wouldn't have to see it or

be it and drunk you crash into the black brick wall

— August 2021, Kettle of Fish, NY, NY