To/For the Screaming Child

It would have to be blue but I (also)

want a ball not because it aches but because

my lips primarily biolumenesce blue

my most native tongue not-involves

the throat is silent and colored

even when hunched over the desk

my lips pretending to belong to

a very respected detective I wasn't

thinking about them even a little

but they were glowing blue

without me I realize I am always detecting

It is how I make it but it's so much

I say to the cows please turn off

my brain and I imagine a key hole

in my temple but never the key

but the cows aren't like me i am comfortable

when they don't blink hardly

ever and they do not know what

I taste like

Screaming child, I am sorry

in my train I forgot you and

the ball that you are screaming for

What can I say that sounds grownup and

wise don't stop screaming? never stop

desiring so loudly they press their

face into hot bricksides to hear

your safe commotion

and as for the round objects

to throw and catch-- do not believe them:

the air is changed despite what they

will say again I know you are probably

not interested anymore I know you want

that ball so badly and that is probably best

For Adrienne

The dog smelling sour in her hair: the only creature who presses against me
this hour I learned you no longer breathe. In my mother's house my mother's
words in response: cruel: echo.

I wanted a dog as a child. Instead l listened to Kurk Cobain and the bird bit
my finger from his cage: green if I had to name it. Years ahead I am naked
in a young tub when I learn of your death on Facebook: could you imagine

it would be like this. Your eyes are burning

with Jupiter now: I see you clearer than ever:
not your hands that shook but your voice that did not

the one time I met you in a dress you complimented and I felt like a disgrace. What does it matter

I did not scream at the forest this night I learned.
Lucille welcomes you, pray, Adrienne, around the fire I am sure
you both are dancing. The cat brushing against my back
in the same endless moment: the crickets wake

where I am,

my name does not appear in the atlas next
to yours rising in braille. I would dive into the ocean
if there were one because I am reading the bottom with my finger

tips. How connected in our separateness we are. If dogs howled

now my own howl could be lost inside the collective: safe there I am

more wild than this. And you. You are free.

Please recycle me/ I am biodegradable

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

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.

Something like life

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.

Some would call

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.

The Rainbow Orange-Deficiency Virus

by Sarah Kai Neal

Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue.

We all know the song. But what if the rainbows

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

email: sneal@rainboworangedeficiencyvirus.com