Another ship inside some bottle.

Clumsy rudder. A naked deck.

Here part the velveteen curtains.


Here is the overwatered plant. 

The sailor’s mouths, salt-crazed.

Familial love’s drained all water.


The only living things do their living

Inside the refrigerator. Plans glow,

Hatch fetid eggs, plump, rot, grow sad


And drape themselves all over us. 

The gypsies collect interest in our futures.

The gypsies balkanize our spoils.


The brown boys eye our teeth, products

Of first-world surgeons. Chew on this,

They seem to say. Our brass. We can’t,


Busy as California scarecrows with aligning

Smiles. The gypsies cure our fine filets,

Distill prayers from a star-struck night.


Will my future lovers be beautiful monks?

We turn on the TV again. Another island,

Sunk. I hum the filial hymn: limes, gin.


My mother, unable to carry a tune, opted

To cut her throat out. Her silence is mistaken

For calm. The fireplace, a grand crematorium.


Survivors can be located by the juniper

Notes of their ashes. The gypsies bastardize 

Our shanty. We’re too drunk to swim 


Or know which notes are wrong. Anyway, 

My father’s gods nod their bobble-heads along.