Under Human Lines~ Joseph Altamore
“ur CUTE!”
the email says
from some girl in your
spam folder
you sit in bed
in your
vomit-crusted t-shirt,
the gnarls in your hair
battling the matted, greasy valleys,
the circles of your eyes
like canyons,
jaundiced, yellowing skin,
blood pouring forth from
a split winter lip,
socks a week old,
pants a week old,
beard a week old
you stare out the window
under human lines,
at the bustling street, sleety
and
bleared through
the backwashed film-caked
glass
the frost
leapt forward to snap with the morning
today,
glossing the whole urban world
in a blanched
web
the traffic lights wink,
the horns curse,
the working men writhe
in their safety belts
in your childhood, the
changes were slow
as the hours of new&hesitant love,
enamor with the world
was honest and
full of laughter
but now,
god is twirling the planet
on his finger
like a living basketball
faster&faster
earth transpires;
a glassy-eyed addict prays, his
fingers bitten by the bible
clutched in his
chapped, leathered
hands,
an officer stops a car,
exhaust eats the sky,
knuckles crack in the supermarket,
eyes close in the alleyway
the cats catch the mice,
the dogs eat the cats,
and
nothingness cloaks itself in transparent wait
for the end
of
all the above
but at least
they say
that
you’re cute