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In Hell the Units Are The Gallon and The Fuck

 

THE unit of wine is the cup. Of LOVE, the unit is the kiss. That’s here.

In Hell, the units are the gallon and the fuck. In Paradise, the drop and the glance.

 

Ants are my hero. They debate and obey. They can sit at a table for

Eight hours, drawing. They spot out the under-theorized…

 

Have some. For they are as abundant here as the flecks of mica in the Iowa night sky.

What are twenty-sided dishes of fancy almonds? What use jewels?

 

He is Kālidāsa. YOU are nothing. Or rather, you’re a tray of stainless steel cones.

Meanwhile, one opens Kumārasambhava to rainbow-colored crystals pointing every which way.

 

Nice try. You’re a tank-builder but you refuse to build tanks. And so now you are to be watched over

By three heckling birds, evilly named, discomfiting to children.

 

¡Fijate! you’re to be watched by three fowl, commonplace in Florida. Even these

Three hearty objectionables: the blue tit, the woodpecker, and the swampcunt.

 

I’m one to talk. I’m so twisted up, my only hope is Salena. My physical therapist,

With the eyes of Athena—and the hands of a destroying eagle.

from I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say Find more by Anthony Madrid at the library

Copyright © 2012 Anthony Madrid
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

Published in Anthony Madrid Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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