Dialogue #4

When the blood pools heavy about your heart
smarminess, kowtows and smells must be cut
-Ephesian sucklers must fire the city
of nematodes massing to annihilate mystery.

The hour is unknown
I tell no secrets.
Like gardenias mushrooms glow
larger than fists of men

The peppery tradition of pageless dirges
is a fit of nerves that is never fatal.
Don't worry, I irradiated the rotting wood,
The nameless shock of sugarbeets is nourishing.

Your mother plays the piano, the orchids admire her.
A small loss clutches to climb into her lap.
This harried child seeks hollows like a church.
Legato gliding like blown glass called the girl.

Kiss the baby, slap the baby, put the baby down

Around her metal breasts
flies spiral.
Milk splats on the floor.
Like a puppy the baby laps it up.

She plants her babies
among the mushrooms in the cellar.
Under the black soil
a city of children's bones
(matchstick thin and white).
Towers, tunnels, bridges.

(italicized stanzas by Moira Scheuring)
circa 1990