Color me not with your eyes for
poison pancreatic tears haunt gray sky
as ribbons of a Nazi flag.
You call the Red Sea of my bed
a smooth and scarlet holocaust.
My day is an ordinary
clothesline of challenges:
I splatter coffee on the rug,
shake it off as hunting dogs;
lips, hips, crutches I despise,
with a fever known only to death;
I spell-check will, hop awkward
toward a swimming pool.
Chlorine is trapped in my hair
like bubble gum, but I love its scent,
for it tells me that I have moved
like a chessboard bishop
over pawns of strife.

A refugee of writing’s camp.
Cactus concentration mourns
the plastic dolls of easy street.
Underground beneath my flesh—
keyboard fingers growing wet
like soggy crackers dipped in soup.
It’s liver soap that cleanses pain,
rappelling cliffs of just one shoe.
I ride the camel sitting up,
traversing Himalayan scars.
You read their crusts, feel their breeze,
a soundtrack for a courage horn.
This pilgrimage, a pyramid.
My bricks just grateful rocks in wells.
Minor issues: scorpions.
Little things: tarantulas.
Stanzas born of tended stings.
My life a pregnant oyster shell.