Complaint
       

Tue best fever had a brick for genitals
and it was an effective fever. We
don't want to seem ungrateful for the
having had of such a fever. Likewise
the heart in the kitchen of its chest. And
from time to time, a person walked up
and asked us if we knew directions either
to the cinema or bed. Usually
we did. We were not a lowly bug or even
something simple to be fooled at. Tue earth
was known as round by us. We had a share
of sex in the movie theater with that
one lost person, whether him or her is not
on the list of our present complaint. A person
it was, in need of directions, which we
ofteri~ knew of, a person with the fever
that had the faces on it, and this was enough
for happiness. It's just, and we hate
to mention it, but there was the problem
of our heads not growing back
after we had cut them off of each other
or ourselves, tenderly, in the bedroom
with our lost person, turning to each other
after a long day, helping to cut off
each other's head in the accustomed
manner, and fully believing we would
see each other again, but of course we learned
too late that there would only be
the cutting off of heads that once.
Why did you fix it with the single
decapitation? I know what you're thinking
but this is not a bid for immortality.
We don't want to live forever, like bugs
or something simple to be fooled at. The coming
fever, the one just ahead with a number
for genitals, is far too beautiful. We don't
want to live forever. It's only
that we'd like to die more often.

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Copyright © 2016 Josh Bell All rights reserved
from Alamo Theory
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission