Gilded stilettos pace the American prison floor,

acupuncturing hardwood planks, between

bodies captured on YouTube also waiting

for tea to be served promptly at five,

fists full of Lincolns, awaiting new fall flavors.

Long gloved hands seem to thrust to the beat

of Ecuadorian folk music, ordering authority

in piercing pitching woo tongue:

“Wrapped spicy vegan morsels melted in a microwave,

and sensible Camellia sinensis with cinnamon, grande.”

In hushed tone to the barista:

“Don’t worry, I’m throwing up the taco later.”

The broad torso, now a teapot with gloved handles,

holds a card punched after payment

and the lid wonders why they’re so slow today…

A more patient woman in an Ecuadorian prison

is listening to the same folk tune at tea time.

A lesbian torture clinic at tea time is quieter.

Tranquil eyes simply stare at tiny holes punched

in the wall, tracking the days confined.

Aromatic candles were lit in the hallway

after a glitter bomb attack on the Bachmann & Associates clinic,

but the woman’s hair and clothes still smell like the shock

of another woman’s urine after another seething,

unsuccessful session of Christian conversion therapy.

(For the closeted and tortured lesbians of the U.S.A. and Ecuador.)

My last boyfriend in college wasn’t American, he was Danish.

Funny how I remembered him when eating prunes in bed,

editing manuscripts on a Sunday afternoon.

We were undercovers for a few months. I met a a couple of his friends -

his roommate and his roommate’s friend, really.

He never met my friends.

White boys and black girls is a sore subject

with descendants of slaves and slaveholders.

But my family would have liked and even accepted him

My fault we ended. I was embarrassed to be seen

with such a good-looking guy, who laughed

into my belly and made me orgasm with a smile.

He complains about pressing 1 for English
and lets me know the honeymoon ended
when his wife cursed him in Spanish.
She hits him on the head with a brick
from the new house of lies he’s building.
He’s says it’s food poisoning, but the truth makes him sick.

She is an illegal from Mexico, so he claims
but maybe he is geographically challenged.
Instead of divorce he wants to put her on I.C.E.
not for a little while, but forever.
The angry housewife claims to be legal.
I don’t care if she is or isn’t.

I’m the bureaucrat who places him on hold,
unable to let him know if he has a case
while his once beloved lovebird flutters about,
scared he’ll put her in the cage again.
Bird seed falls from the skyline
as he hangs up on elevator blues. I don’t care.

Your sister died in the fire.
That winter was unreasonably
warmer and drier in Texas,
reaching record highs and a low
chance to rain relief from your heaven.

That hot day in February
the sky was milky blue in your atmosphere
but a creeping gray in her hair,
billowy smoke signals in a furnace
and swan song notes touch devil throats.

She died alone in the room that day—
not from the trial by vigilante flames
but by smoke inhalation from your Holy See.
The denomination of domination doesn’t matter
as your sister’s body burns in the blaze.

She’s a happy nobody, happy nowhere now,
but you weep because you think she’s in hell.
No—she’s perched on a cliff in Ireland,
writing another cliffhanging chapter
and laughing her last breath away.

Nothing could stop her from breaking the dish,

dispersing shards, pieces of bruised, broken wisdom–

a sunflower in a dry vase kissed by shadows of thoughts

as theremins play and a man confesses a pure loathing,

unadulterated slapstick to tragic red rouge on wrinkled

lips murmuring the lyrics to a song about cats

who record palsy conversations with social lepers,

and sleep with closet racist gun nuts who only

look good naked and completely silent, simmering–

no–hatred rises into an “unpoppable” bubble

of disgust for dalliances with false prophets,

with no more room for love. Full. Stop.

Rubber tire sandals on concrete

after the rain sounds like

diving in pools of pontification

and drowning in the hypocrisy.

The lone brown figure stands plump

and juicy with exciting tales

of listening to a bluesman

on a dusty crossroads -

Damnation intersecting pure jubilee

of self discovery and new

wonderworlds of fruit and fungus

on the fattened virgin tongue.

Will he truly beat her to death

after dusk when well-dressed

paupers ask for change -

and the old blues singer wails?

He moans for a divine peace

that runs like fountains of gin

in a disease free whorehouse

where he pimps his old lady.

I listen for a while and

my eyes meet a stranger’s -

a watery and muddy green Mississippi.

And my blues feel like home sweet home.

As I look down at wet muddy feet,

my sandals hum to the tune

and the stranger sways and

closes his eyes as if praying for me.

the virgin tattoo
by DIY Danna

His leaving that night with the party girl
was the first sting of a needle
that touched my left thigh,
while the DJ’s damn record kept spinning.
The party girl was a pretty and lovable shell,
completely confident in her abilities
to make a temporary impression
on his left breast.

I’m reading Oates again at breakfast,
spinning the bowl clockwise.
The book opens to ignorant bliss -
and a girl with regrettable tattoos she covered up,
the past.
The day ends with an orange burst tattoo
etched on the milky blue sky,
and the prayer flags wave goodbye to him.

That night I dreamed of my first tattoo -
a nubile bride, boldly exposed
in a whipped cream wedding dress.
I don’t know why a stranger
is licking the dress from bodice to toe,
but for a moment, there is no inhibition.
The permanent symbol of love
is worn without pride.

i’ve lived 6 months in this town
i’m half-baked right now
putting back items on the shelf
i don’t want or need – like 2 for 1 sunflower seeds
and that package of moist Betty Crocker brownies.

the invisible contract gave me more
time and money to spend in the purple zone
the land of soymilk and iPhonies.
(take a pic of my savage breast
you Hipstamatic closet racist!)

the anger boils in an unwatched pot
i forgot on the stove
in banal haste to not waste my time.
i walk with reusuable shopping bags
up and down the aisles of inconvenience.

not a care in the world,
the clerk in the backroom smokes.
a joint venture looms as he kisses his girlfriend
between cigarettes and plastic sheathed porno magazines
jerk offs don’t read to jerk off…

…to the beat of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”
i walk out – shattering to think of time wasted
in a ghost town formerly sponsored by petrochemicals
and reruns of reality shows i never watched.
i lost your new phone number before the bomb.

for t.j.

Picking up the pieces of rubble from a broken

seashell while on holiday with the husband

who demands to know what you are thinking-

about the life you once led as a missionary

assuming the position as a humble servant

and kneeling before the alter of self-righteousness

and political machinations – character assassinations

that end when you snuff out that demanding voice

of conscience. The reason tells you it is not love

but a hormonal imbalance that tricks four pounds-

not kilograms – of wrinkled gray matter

that is smoothed and smothered by affection.

His demands are simple – tell him what you are thinking.

But your arresting thoughts are held behind bulbous eyes

that scan the shoreline plotting the next escape from the

escarpment – with a leap into the ocean – A New Awakening!

You swim until you grow weary and submit

to the congenial demands of the wrinkled gray liquid matter -

once an ocean of wrong choices and regret,

now a euphoric honeymoon sea of possibility.

Fires are shot through the cannons. Boom! Boom!

Even hermits clamor out of caves to view the spectacle:

Women soldiers on parade, waving flags originally designed by an 18th century freak. That Betsy Ross was some kind of freak.

The lines of protest swell – bigger than Freak Nik, bigger than a KKK rally, bigger than a Code Pink meeting, bigger than Teabaggers’ gumption… Bigger than a caveman’s head. We’re all loaded with opinions, ready to aim and fire. Protesting is what this loaded country is all about.

Action and reaction.

Fires are shot through the cannons. Boom! Boom!

Masses flee or rejoice.

Our country has always been driven by action and reaction. Sometimes we ride in reverse, driven blindly by faith or fear.

What drives you?

…Meanwhile, at the spectacle:

The good women are marching, and the bad men are watching. Bad women are watching too, aiming their rifles at protesters, ready to shoot.