Planet-friendly/ When my soul molts
just put me in the compost
with the chicken bones/ My skin will settle
down next to onion/ Stew in the mouth
of the slowest eater
The soil rifling through itself
that does not seek/Does not discern
between one hard thing or the other
Shale or tooth/ Folds over the lip
and worm/ Sizzles out a rose
of recycled placenta/ Evaporated
eye ball tears fill gutters/ glasses
I’ll be honored to be your drink
When you couldn’t stop
hoola-hooping you hipped
till you turned
tornado. What a beautiful
roof. Was it good? When it finally
fell to your ankles
a house fell out with it—
gashed in the field, cows
splatting down must have
sent you over
the rainbow
to see if you’d melt
in the rain.
When you
got there,
you heard her
singing some
where but
could not
find
her.
A platform: smiling with my liver.
I want a brave haircut so you will
know I am, call me
Little Brave.
Most likely you do not know
I am dead serious
most of the time.
I shoot cannons and you go ha ha.
This is something like repetition,
something like life.
Yesterday was strange
to feel grown up. I held my shoulders
back—statue’d told no one
this is how it feels, does not feel.
Then Peter Pan came
asking to the window, how do you
like your air--dehydrated or fried?
We ate off a large white plate
till morning.
It was something like life.
Now it is today and my hands shake.
You will not know unless I tell you
I keep a picture of a lady in my freezer. Her eyes
beside the peas know all. I want to marry her,
but she is dead.
Tonight I will take off my shoes
and my blender will speak back.
Creatures have a way of recovering.
I will leave the plant where it fell out the window.
I know I am too much
like you. That is why you cannot love me.
We go extinct from each other, this planet
of many planets, species
fade off-grid each day—
To watch the breakdown
of cells attack each other—
caffeinated hive—implosion shakes
the tree, then bursts it to light-ashes.
They’ll send a man in a hat, a pocket
that shines to tell you. Or they won’t.
His teeth will be wet when you learn what
you already knew:
stop looking for feathers.
Don’t you remember you dreamt they would
empty every sky, then fill them
with birds that look real.
Don’t you remember
some would call this beauty, claim
not to know the difference.
by Sarah Kai Neal
disappear? Impossible, you may say, but
unfortunately, the possibility of the impossibility
grows more and more possible.
Across the globe, rainbows plagued by the nearing
of the red stripe to the yellow as the death
of their orange nears are now undergoing an innovative
procedure that is saving lives, and color.
To describe open rainbow surgery, we interviewed
Dr. Tender Heart Bear at Care Bear University who
describes the procedure:
“The lucky rainbow is saved by the needed orange
transplanted from a healthy rainbow donor--usually
a poor rainbow, or one who passed away
most untimely but signed the back of its arching card.
During surgery, the rainbow is put to sleep beneath
a sunny day. Anesthesiologists spray mist
once every sixty seconds--just enough so that
the subject is still there, but in a fading way.
Just before it disappears completely, more mist,
then counting to thirty seconds until the rainbow begins
to blink. At this time, in a slim window of 30 seconds
before the next spray makes it again vibrant, rainbow surgeons
like myself inject orange from the skyscraper needle
into the sleeping rainbow.”
Postop, Dr. T. Heart describes, rainbows are watched closely
for rejection of the donor orange, and administered sun
and light pills that clinical studies have shown help
it accept the orange as its own. The risk of rainbow death
in surgery continues to decrease, as leading rainbow surgeons
learn more about rainbow makeup.
In Fix Sick Rainbows school at Care Bear University
surgeons and researchers alike work tirelessly
to uncover the epidemic, now coined the Rainbow
Orange-Deficiency Virus that attacks the orange stripe.
As they dissect rainbow cadavers and begin mapping
its ultraviolet strand, it is their hope to produce a vaccine
before the end of the decade that will prevent
the attack on orange.
Associated Press
Not one sip or two, but swallows.
Did you know when you jump, you fall
back down she never said.
Those understoods. Feathers.
Inside me I never said. Thousands of eggs.
I’m not bleeding but I will, but if I were,
what would that mean?
Woman Hand, reach me. Up my dress: a nest
of birds, many promises of red.
