I chewed on the fingernails growing like fungi from the soil of the TV screen,
and sucked their grit into my cavities.
I tasted wet pavement and rotted rubber.
My beggar's eyes were fixed on the round clock on the wall,
but its exhausted hands and crooked numbers
had succumbed to the turmoil.
I had carved a pleasure hole into the grimy mattress
after my pregnant wife had been committed,
and now squeaks and whispery movements came from inside.
My wife was in a padded room, I thought,
just like her growing fetus,
just like the things crawling inside the sticky foam.
A deep chill washed over me,
and I squeezed my plushies so hard their zits popped.
I looked out the window like through a gutter opening.
Torrents came down from the towering clouds of concrete,
and the tall, gray building across the street started leaning, sinking.
People dropped from the top floors like sprayed roaches.
Torrents came down from the towering clouds of concrete,
and the tall, gray building across the street started leaning, sinking.
People dropped from the top floors like sprayed roaches.
Trembling, far-away hands tossed the plushies in the basket,
and clockwork legs walked me to the laundry room.
My neighbor, Patricia, sat naked in her wheelchair
in the middle of the flooded place.
The washers and dryers were silent, cubical buildings without power.
As she rocked back and forth
murky water as high as her knees
lapped at the brown nipples of her sagging, tubular breasts.
Thick with clownish makeup,
her moonface prayed to the blurred face of the clock.
Diapers floated around like drowned babies.
Perched on top of one
two soggy roaches were stuck in a chitinous embrace.
and clockwork legs walked me to the laundry room.
My neighbor, Patricia, sat naked in her wheelchair
in the middle of the flooded place.
The washers and dryers were silent, cubical buildings without power.
As she rocked back and forth
murky water as high as her knees
lapped at the brown nipples of her sagging, tubular breasts.
Thick with clownish makeup,
her moonface prayed to the blurred face of the clock.
Diapers floated around like drowned babies.
Perched on top of one
two soggy roaches were stuck in a chitinous embrace.
Patricia’s eyes rolled toward me, her drawn eyebrows a mask of surprise.
“I’m waiting for my date,” she says with a brown smile.
“Came to wash my shit!”
I meant to say: can’t you see our building is sinking?
I meant to ask: how is he gonna pick you up?
I meant to say: the roads are closed.
But, when I opened my mouth no words came out,
my atrophied vocal cords went stiff.
A solid, massive object came up my throat and invaded my mouth.
My frantic tongue tasted crawling rice and bitter bile.
My eyes bulged and teared up
as my mouth opened wide and my nostrils flared.
I dropped the laundry basket in the water
and grabbed the edge of the protruding object.
It came out and dropped in the water followed by a jet of vomit
as if from an unclogged pipe.
It was a newspaper bundle, maggots writhing over the faded print,
a floating landfill of words, now moving toward Patricia,
on whispering ripples of filth.
Patricia watched my buoyant discharge,
her swirling tongue smearing her dark lipstick.
“I’m waiting for my date,” she says with a brown smile.
“Came to wash my shit!”
I meant to say: can’t you see our building is sinking?
I meant to ask: how is he gonna pick you up?
I meant to say: the roads are closed.
But, when I opened my mouth no words came out,
my atrophied vocal cords went stiff.
A solid, massive object came up my throat and invaded my mouth.
My frantic tongue tasted crawling rice and bitter bile.
My eyes bulged and teared up
as my mouth opened wide and my nostrils flared.
I dropped the laundry basket in the water
and grabbed the edge of the protruding object.
It came out and dropped in the water followed by a jet of vomit
as if from an unclogged pipe.
It was a newspaper bundle, maggots writhing over the faded print,
a floating landfill of words, now moving toward Patricia,
on whispering ripples of filth.
Patricia watched my buoyant discharge,
her swirling tongue smearing her dark lipstick.
Through a blur, I saw her lifting a skeletal leg
over the arm of the wheelchair,
exposing her hairy cavity.
Bloated hands grabbed the festering bundle
and rubbed it against the crooked crevice.
Patricia’s head spasmed back in ecstasy,
breasts dropping on the sides like sacks of sand.
Ecstasy crumpled Patricia’s face,
as she uttered a low gargling moan.
Fidgety fingers lubricated the hole with worm paste
and pushed the newspaper inside,
my rot hugging her rot.
