(no subject)

[hawthorne]

Midget Alchemy

Inch-tall bottle,
flat with worn tan cork stopper,
long beaker neck,
and centrifugal ripples on my front and back-
like the years of a tiny translucent
hacksawed tree stump.

Turn me on my side and
I'm a dull arrowhead,
no shaft or feathers;

Upside down
I'm the wide brim of a scorpion's tail
petering off at you.

If you were a female bottle
I'd buy a new cork,
sharpen my tail,
soak my arrowhead in love,
and shine a light
on my translucent pecs.

Diner after the Gift Shop

Flat blue rose on white
with copper floral base:
fifty cents and "Made in China"- wait,
the pattern loops upon itself, and so
it cannot house my diamond earrings,
no.

Nicotine Romance

Gutted fish of the dim ashtray
and alcohol bays of Brooklyn's shores,

Sing the sparks to me
of our brown hair and our red,
of the last two matches
stuck and struck together
in our black-and-white
worlds.