INSECT MIMICRY

Beetles feign a poison

they lack. She left me

over the drinking. ‘Mocktail’ sounds

like a kind of ancient scorpion unearthed.

I arrive at weddings uninvited,

I walk at wayward angles,

I will appear alarming to you

and talk too loudly about politics

so you go away

and I will have an excuse

for everything I do not have.

BLOOD BEAM

so many frivolous things in this world

a super moon every month now

everything in the news sounding

like Digimon signature attacks

Bivalent Booster, Burst Wolf Claw

Dark Digivolution

learning a new beam attack

call it Blade Beam

the playground had a cutting wind to it

the rain lasted an entire recess

I slumped home

unmarked buoy of the soul

a car dealership in Missouri

HAMSTER HEAVEN

There are no castles in America just

barbeques and biblically-accurate angels.

Dead animals raining down

from hamster heaven.

I cannot be created or destroyed.

My grief is a biblically-accurate Disneyland, its spires wet cardboard,

its beer shaken as grenades.

I’m going to prove something incredibly important

killing the next person in line,

I will gun down so many minivan families

that my talking points escape me

like tiny pets thudding beneath

their dumb cemeteries.