By: Ricky Garni

F THAT MUSEUM IS EVER

hit by a tornado,
Alexander Hamilton’s hair
will land on Harry Houdini’s
Ouija Board

What’s left of the world’s smallest mermaid
will settle upon Bigfoot’s foot.

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ARCHIVES

this man filmed his wife as a child.
and now he is an old man
and in his hands
a wife
and a child.

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HOW I FEEL ABOUT MIA FARROW

When Mia Farrow rested her head upon
Michael Caine’s chest, I could actually feel
her head resting on his chest and could reach
out and touch her curly blonde hair and hear
the sound of her soft, sweet voice in my ear
even though I was not Michael Caine sometimes
I wonder if Michael Caine can say the same thing.

###

XXX

XXX is arguably the worst wax museum
in the world. People stare at the figures
there and point and chuckle and often
burst into laughter and so – let’s not
argue. Still,

I often wonder if, given the choice,
I would prefer to be a wax figure
in the worst or the best of wax museums.

It’s really a question of spending eternity
with people who are laughing and having
a good time, or people who are looking
at you very thoughtfully and soulfully
and seldom smiling and impeccably
dressed wearing the finest of colognes
and eau de toilettes and you are who
you are

Which would you prefer?

Yesterday I said to myself:

“Since you insist,
I would rather not prefer
if I must.”

###

DEATH WATCH

You don’t choose to rent an apartment
below an old sailor who is fashioning
a boat of the finest cedar which he
is building for a future voyage which
he will not discuss nor even confirm
with you by even so much as a nod

with corn cob pipe affixed to his lips
affixed and not unlit – no –

this just happens
and all that you are allowed
or permitted to possess in your heart
for him are the words Bon Voyage –
as you might say to any love, but
here with a lighter and more tentative
kiss familiar upon an unfamiliar, and
salty brow.

###

JE EST UN AUTRE

Most people say
you are something else –
but not Rimbaud, no –

He says
I am someone else

Yet
Do not despair

For it that’s true
you can be him
and of course
and I can be you

###

SUICIDE NOTE

How could anyone wear
pearls

They look just like centipedes
caught in a tussle

A Q-style radioactive melée
this would be

the science fiction
of our past TVs

and not the history
that awaits us

coyly a’drip with
glowing emboldened
décollage

of a novice
wonderland
that will never

be

###

I FEEL BETTER NOW, AND THEN

We have been planning on eating
at a barbecue restaurant that has
a spaceship on top of it for years
now and yet we never have. It’s
not that we are afraid of the space
ship, it’s just that every time we are
about to go something comes up and
we forget all about it. After all these
years, I have begun to wonder if
the spaceship is still even there.

“Of course it is,” Juanita reassures me.
“Spaceships are from the future.”