We legally Screw
5-16-07
By Dom Maltempi
i.
I could see her in a dirty restaurant kitchen
Thinking about Kinsey’s bug collection
Before culling sexual histories of many men
Specimens double-locked up in sliding steel draws
dipped in permanent juice
She might as well be a woman today
Some daytime hours she feels more like an old couple
about to commit double suicide in a third rate burger booth at closing time
Making up stories and holding it all in
Stories are from nowhere and leaking all over
Stories without underwear
slaked thirsty thirst of thirsty curs
Nowhere is looming for a struggle-joy to boil cold-hands apart
ii.
‘We are meant for each other papa!’
You don’t know if you love me anymore and I don’t know when it started
Pieces of language dropped as a seafood bread crumb trail looking
for the last fleshy Halibut
for the mouth
of an absconding ex-hostess former Miss Philippines
half drunk in a lobster tank her hands taped together but looking beautiful
who waits for the morning that does not play clavichord so well
Lost as a child and taught mathematics and home economics
By one of Goddard’s mischievous movie clowns
the weekends are parcels of gruel fed to the pissed off maimed
in there flipped husks smoldering
iii.
Lewd jokes from the pothead maitre de
I could never remember these jokes
They were addressed to another in a sweet rage
But spoken in such a way
that you knew they were intended
For the whole staff
Not just Miss Boney knees
Obsessing about the whiteness of a tight uniform jacket sleeve
Now the bathroom is locked
Double locked
Fort Fucking Knox in a speeding meteorite
you double check that door till you’re unperturbed
find some equanimity in a common object
new deodorant cake with its congealed firmness
was the most beautiful thing
you have seen
all day
but there is no regret to detonate
you’re foreheads wizened
seething grace
Imprisoned in a flimsy plastic prison imitation
of some celestial shaped gate
with a new-darkness detection meter
iv.
A rash of first dates
Sloppy kisses on razor-burned skin
Closing time gags featuring a sou chef’s crass announcement
Hated state legislator is pretending to juggle a metaphorical budget
Mr. Whittler with the chalk in his hand
I can’t tell where he or the chalk starts or ends
Is knocked on the jaw by the legislator who takes out his gold card
swipes it through his hair
for any possible damages done
Whittler’s apoplectic by the half wiped off specials board
You never get paid enough
to pay enough attention to this meddlesome stew
Playing a part of the coddled or the cozened
You lost your car keys sometime before shift started
But you never went to work