By: Alexander Perezz

WHERE ELSE COULD GOD BE?

Veil draped lovingly
Fine-knitted embroidery
Over your death mask

Now there is nothing for her
Not then here there being to be
Where else could she be?

Unfamiliar
Mammals eat their young alive
They don’t moralize

Funny how that works
I expected it
Maybe you were full

My first words ‘I hate’
Profanity slid down walls
Cursing endearments

Welts sprung up pink-eyed
Sometimes they wept down my back
Hard to wipe away

Bleach-dipped toys
Play stung like angry mud wasps
She buzzed around

No friends could I have
You saw that I was lonely
Gave me a sick doll

Imaginary friends cried
Tears tasted sweet
Sweeter than I knew

Child dare not speak
Otherwise sacrifice skin
Grumbling stomach

Now I say it
Intact
Satiated

When she played piano
Sonatas shook rubbed-raw ground
Beethoven could hear

Earth dare not complain
I…I cried soft arpeggios
Under baby grand

###

POETIC LULLS

If you can run far
There’s a hole in a
Bristle Cone Pine (Pinus longaeva)
To sleep squirreled in dry leaves

Tidal dreams
Violent moons
Full new crescent loomed stooped
Shake coral bones awake

Under torn blankets
Shadows slice
Eyelids clean-off
Spotlights sweep

Calico cats roam
Dark brown spots
Cyclops-blink
Claws slice out my throat

I pass Gallows Hill
Limbs point accusingly
Why not climb up?
(Hear gnashing witch-cackles?)

Only one pathway
Into forgetfulness…poetic lulls
Hand-holding verso-recto
Poetry wrapping arms