Amputee City

Amputee City
by Tina Posner
Je me souviens
         -Quebec license plates
I’ve been coloring my teeth for God,
whose presence is confirmed by
the tunnel graffiti: “Some things
I allay, and some things I destroy.”
It’s those dream-logic moves
that cause imaginary ancestors
to cluck tongues and disapprove.
They say: “Suzanne, all your questions
turn to sand.” But that’s not my name.
And the sirens are constant now,
like an astringent seeping into
An opened wound.
                                  The prediction
has passed its expiration point—time
to cast the moldy dish out of that sad
refrigerator heart. Some say the wish
inside self-mutilation is surprisingly
healthy—an ad homonym attack on
on French chaos with English cows.
But cleverness won’t take you very far.
From here I go alone to bump along
the supplicant trail where trampled
dust rains back down tacit blessings
from the patron saint of amputees.