I’ve been doing sit-ups.
Sit-ups every day under
pulled curtains & now I’m
a disassembled pen waiting
for spit balls to papier-mâché
fluorescent lights.
Brigades of knob-eyed
ferrets tuck our coins,
our coin-shaped wedding rings,
& our gold-plated Velcro straps
into hollow slats beneath
our beds. When I have bed
head I just cut out the offending
hairs, kneeling over the toilet,
flushing away the evidence.
I’ve been doing sit-ups.
I’ve been trimming the skin
inside my nose with formaldehyde
& rosewater. Others are using embalming
fluid. It’s fashionable. We’re rising.
We’re gaseous. We’re blinding sun
particulars. We’re furious for glory.
Forward! Fold your underwear
lengthwise. Trample the one-
eyed & the believers, &
the fish-taco-loving 20-somethings
with ambitions of overhead
lighting made of glass.
Wednesday June 11th, 2010
He wanted Abraham Lincoln to be tragic.
To not be the joke of a man that he had become.
He wanted to cut Lincoln’s hair, trim his beard, tilt
his head into the basin and push the pads
of his fingers into Lincoln's scalp. "How's
that?" and "He said what?" and maybe
that's all a little later and right now Lincoln
just closes his eyes, let's the tension do somersaults
from his chest to his knees. And he shakes a little
because it's hard to let go. Billiard balls popping
from his chest, rolling down the checkerboard floor
to the back room where six women are waiting
for their hair to dry in translucent beehives. They whisper
to the bees, "What is wrong with him?" "What?"
And Lincoln sits ignorant of bees and their keepers,
preoccupied with the beeswax candy in his hand. Free at the counter.
Dustin puts oil on Lincoln's beard before cutting it with scissors
Down to the skin, then the hot cream, the kind that explodes
with foam in a ceramic bowl with a little water and a brush.
He shaves Lincoln once. Then again, running
the blade against the grain the second time. Following
That with some lotion for the burn. "How's that? Better?"
Dustin Luke Nelson is a Co-Founding Editor of InDigest and InDigest Editions. He is also a writer/producer for Radio Happy Hour and his poetry has appeared here and there on the Internet and on the not-Internet. He blogs at blogsareaboutego.blogspot.com and takes to heart that a dear friend once said, "The Nile is a river in Egypt. Don't make jokes about it."
