AUDIO
There is a body bag
stomping in your bedroom.
The zipper undoes itself
and a pale hand
reaches for your hand.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Says the turkey on television
in your parents’ kitchen.
A fork rattles
in your father's mouth
clinking each chip
of elephant tusk.
Your brother chisels a star
in the backyard
gutting light-pulp
and throwing it in a bucket
where the dog chooses
before it chews.
Your mother tickles her pan
into a kangaroo's pouch.
It might be singing
while she is scooping
while she is singing
those holiday tunes.
_____________________________
AUDIO
With this sword I crack open the shopping mall
and little devils that spit tar and ocean liners in forests.
With this sword I spread the cinnamon sea, your ears, nightmares
of sheep, and monsters that spit violins.
Spoons become valedictorians, speechwriters,
they toss eyes all over dance floors.
I can't even kiss your purse.
With this sword I eject monsters from your mouth
and the spit from another man's throat.
The nightmares of fat kids
boom in the air, you devil, you pigeon wailing like a valedictorian
on the final stage.
With this sword I want to call you home, break the Amazon River,
slice shells of men and shells of my hands,
slice shells circling in clouds and shells hammering on me during jazzercise.
You fall asleep over me
like a polar bear that sipped too much Coca-Cola.
With this sword I might, with this sword I muster, with this sword
gerbils cackle but do not nibble my hands.
With this sword you don't have to be a boulder
spilled from a devil's ashtray.
Come outside of the wizard's math book, the penciled syllabus.
Come outside of the cinnamon sea, filled with chicken pox.
With this sword the piano plays itself, your sheep gallop into the kiddie pool.
Cigarettes turn into jazz, not chemotherapy.
Sunken treasure falls out of the devil, you fall
out of the devil.
With this sword pitchers fill with lemon water
students exit the lobby and forget about math equations.
They spit trees onto their calculators.
With this sword tar migrates into obituaries.
You wear gowns and step on fat kids during snowstorms.
The markets sell folktales. I tickle nuclear fields.
I slice the throbbing throat of chemistry from your sister
who wears ugly sweaters at Christmas.
With this sword the snow does not fall on my shoes
and raincoats cannot terrorize daylight.
Fires melt the coats of sheep.
I save the ancient seas
and they start swelling again from your eyes.
Finally we can crash jet skis into the merry-go-round.
