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1452
By Gordon Massman
Mine cuticles ragged and fingernails craggy, mine toenails
yes, bitten, mineself limber to stick toes in mouth, mine an-
us clean as polished copper, mine foreskin bathed, mine
bald pate buffed like Oxford upper, mine incisors flossed
with climbers rope, mine nostril and ear mustachios clip-
ped, mine heart boiled in hot mop water, mine brain bare
footsole black with floorfilth, mine immortal soul floats
in alcohol—dead alien—I Brasso-ed candelabra morality,
eight glinty flutes: adultery, lies, laziness, vanity, gluttony,
hatred, jealousy, aggression, a wick atop each eaten by
flame, mine appetite sponged down like a chopping
block enslaved to ribs, lambshank, breastbones, fishspine,
mine own infant boy, babyfat and babyloin, mine veal-
sweet female preadolescent cleaved across grain cracked
and salted; mine dignity mimics narcissism stretched like
gum, adore, seduce, worship mineself, fifty-four year
long metastasized thread eternal-seeming self-regenera-
ting with each threatening interference; mine optimism
stands like a pristine single rainbow white tooth in a col-
umn of rotten gums, mine sunshine envelopes, mine eyes
gaze high, mine spring trees ratify mine natural constitu-
tion; I wipe mine empathy in cool vinegar bath, feverish,
overflushed, beating out like a wild rabbit's nose unwel-
come terror, unrelenting fear, unwarranted exhaustion,
unceasing flight, cold vinegar rag, for she must die with-
out mine in a hot helpless bed and I must perish sick a-
midst indifferent rocks reptile transversed, and all wrap
fleshless fingers round the ripe Asian pear pimple rusty
yellow bursting juice wounded papery brown bursting
juice. Film over. Crowd the aisles. File out. Adjourn-
ment music. Tonight oblivions of mutual burials, for
thine is the power and the glory forever and ever, amen
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