Ladyfingers

Lady Macbeth's hands were always filthy because she was always putting them where they didn't belong. After trying the spiciest Italian remedies known to her people the good lady decided to buy a puppy to suckle on each of her dirty digits, giving them names like pinky for her pinky puppy and Princess for her other pinky puppy because they were the daintiest. She spent many an enchanting afternoon gallivanting around her kingdom high-fiving the court jester, using her five puppy discount at the local market and giving her servant boys the most roly poly wallop they had ever received in their short malformed lives. And of course there were downsides, but she played them off as fun: new gloves to be buy, interesting new methods for eating a sandwich and elaborate manicures to be had, but sadly her fluffy lumpkins developed a taste for imagined blood and took off on an all to real rampage, dragging their lady along for the ride. "Oh what fun!" she garbled, her mouth stuffed full of dirt as though something could have grown from it.

Sensitivity

Sometimes it's hard being so sensitive- like when you see some guy get rocked in the nuts by a football or something small or pointy enough to really get in there- and he didn't even see it coming. He was eating a sandwich while talking on the phone; only managing to wave an x in front of his crotch before crumpling to the ground, sandwich bite held mid-mouth like like a barnacle- and you. You are having a shadenfreudegasm. Where did his manhood go? Compose yourself.

In the abdominal pocket
clipped and quivering
like a frightened doe
I hope.

Atheist God or Low Self-Esteem

I don't believe
in myself
anymore

Trampoline Friend

We would test each spring
before looking back at his step-dad,
"Don't kill yourselves" he'd say
before disappearing into the air
conditioning for the summer.

The trampoline's keeper was at least
twice as heavy as anyone else.
He would launch us into the trees
overhead to pick the foursquare balls
and Frisbees that spent all winter growing.

We would get up early and bounce to separate
the drum from the morning dew and bounce
till walking on firm ground felt unnatural.
We rehydrated with Otter Pops and ate
Otter Pops and wore Otter Pops like warpaint

because you can sort of eat them
in the air and in the air we were safe
unless we got a good bounce and floated up,
beyond the sphere of lost things
to a kingdom of bee hives and dappled light

and once we sent smoke bombs and roman candle fire
into the branches and once we invited some girls
and once I put a foot through the cover and slit
from ankle to thigh and iced it with an Otter Pop,

running it along my leg like a bloody train
until I realized my muscles were still clenching
and we were burning out ever so slowly, illuminated
against a backdrop that only moved forwards.

Dogs and Children

L lights fires in the park as though they keep the world warm while I wear reflective safety gear and do my best to keep dogs and children away, but there are just so many. "I think he can handle himself," says L as she douses a house of brittle sticks in gasoline. "But he is just a baby" I plead, pinching an old man's jowl. She is now standing on top of the big toy, fire screeching around her like a jubilant audience. At the bend of her wrist a trickle of gasoline runs down the curly slide, "Dr. Jessup says he is testing you with that face." Her stream reaches the lake of burning rubber that once was a safer alternative and the flames quickly ascend to the base of the crow's nest, "And what if I fail the test? What then?" I look down into my arms and the old man is gently snoring. Night waves hello from across the city and, from the looks of it, L has run out of combustibles. She dabs some of her well-earned sweat with a kerchief I had given for her birthday, "Today was good." she pronounces. I agree in a whisper as to not wake the old man who coos in agreement: a happy family.