Livio Farallo

believing

this much is certain:
the stars are terrible tonight. brittle
specks you could crush between finger
and thumb. tonight they are not moving
up but hang from flaccid strings tired
as old kites, bright as closets dusted
gray. we could crawl on the ground
avoiding them. we could squander seconds
as if they added up to nothing. we
could ignore them blindly and bob into
their small sharp points. that is to say,
we use the rhythm method hoping
it will work. we christen the pope
a star at our noisy gushings and shove
the fertilization. we are responsible
apostles, this much is certain:

receding

now the blank ease
of a smile
turns up lips
cracked
     but warm.
lips
slightly gray
     but warm.
and the window
the rain would
surely have wet down
yesterday
has an imperfection
widened by ice;
     if you listen,
     on the count of three:
a crack.
a stress fracture
on a bone never used,
a window
cataracted in frost.
muscles unbalanced
as the shade here,
casting shadows
seldom stretched:
     that dripping smile,
     an arctic circle,
     a moon chipped away,
          but warm.

saturday

i have eaten the hungry morning pig.
living badly
as opposed to not living at all,
a carcass waits for burial
far past disease into exile.
but the alarm:
i could’ve slept until monday,
ignoring products of digestion
that pushed out on their own.
but the alarm:
an avalanche is a noisy preening of mountain fur;
you’ve seen cats do it with their tongues. and then,
bloody hands are stickier than muddy hills
and easier to climb with.
but the alarm is a pair of slippers
at the foot of the bed
and i rise and cross dry rivers, clay-veined as a desert,
the traffic slow, the traffic is wind humming along
in the sunday of sin.
the pineapples blessed and split with machetes
might as well have been heads; and from
the dirt scars of gardens grow new architecture
new seeds new stricken forests where perhaps
audubon will sketch more birds, perhaps
woodwinds are the sound of detergent
shaken from flapping wings.
at the time of slipping continents
there was never a god concerned with quakes:
only a sperm cell carrying a rose, wagging
its puppy dog tail.
its mate
raised its backside.
and in a shadow of mythology,
tenements barked up to high olympus, children
told about heaven,
other beliefs black-hooded and hung at noon.
i could’ve slept.

 

Livio Farallo is co-editor of Slipstream and Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, New York. His stuff has appeared extensively throughout the small press world.