GEMINI, SCORPIO, and CAPRICORN

Vivisected

harold bacon

stringy tendons

the ventricles of

my heart, tendons

hanging in thin ropy

bits, sinewy, charred,

and ultimately, so desperately

enamored with everything that you

do.

a single hand on a shoulder

once married, twice removed

I fit just perfectly between

your index, your thumb, and your

tentative caress

How difficult it is to window

shop, to browse, cannot purchase

the intensity and brooding utter

coal mines in the pit of your eye

socket

I like that I noticed that

you noticed me lying on your

bed

Remember the brief moment at

the edge of the kitchen counter

and you stood against me, I leaned

into you, I brushed your fingertips,

and you brushed mine, please alert The

Paris Review that this wrenching November

is truly the cruelest month of all.

Grating predatory whirring

the sounds of lives being led

while my affection stands still.

in a corridor, you stood

stoic, dark, and mysterious, the

portrait of a man frozen and uncertain

of what he is about to be thrust into for

the rest of his life. If only I stumbled into

your embrace a bit sooner; I have decided that

you remain a neutral evil.

Print out my doctrine of affections

in Times New Roman, composed in invisible

ink. We have no sympathy for anyone in the 10

items or less line.

I would like

to convince myself

in our ash tray academic

calendar that maybe, just

perhaps, a small chance that

we were a little bit in love

KATHY ACKER

Sunday afternoon
bitter grounds at the
bottom of the kitchen
sink

grounding and failing,
cords from the core snipped
and yanked and torn and peeled
dizzy, dizziness, being dizzy, uncertain
of affection or something more troubling.

worried about being in a competition
with everyone else, waiting for everyone
else to leave the apartment, next in line at
the grocery store, the last packet of hemp seed
at the back of the metal, beige, and finger cutting
store shelf waiting for everyone else to remain utterly
uncertain for an indefinite time.

Take 40mg of ambien
with a glass of chilled
soy milk, throw out everything
in the apartment when he asks
you to clean, look in the vanity
mirror surprised at how dewy,
pink, and unforgiving you
appear

Your hazy portrait in a
halfhearted dream, I am
trapped in a hell where I
can never understand the
look on your face, your glance
spills lemon juice on all of my
wounds.

Mechanic, flimsy, broken plastic
there are many words and images for
weakness, vulnerability, and longing, but
I still haven’t found a word for when I haven’t
spoke to you in a really long time.