ROBIN LEE JORDAN

GELLED BANGS, TERROR

Motherfuckers wonder
if we’re in a cartoon.

              Everybody drives convertibles. Everybody’s running
              for mayor. Every shit you’ve ever stepped in is a hearse.

I’m just making conversation, bro.

Your execution a joke about lightning,
a white suit in a moose heart and two skulls.

GTFO

Even my bones
want out.

This is bullshit, they say,
May day, they say, may day!
Let us through!

There isn’t a tarp
big enough to cover
all this loss.

Whatever’s
under there
crashed nearby
and it wants
all your skin.

Give it to me.
You don’t need
it. It’ll be easy,
like getting out
of a boat.

THE HOUSE NEAREST YOU HATES HOW YOU LOOK

gather your things

tell me how much
your brother drank
tonight or what

the people he hired
to clean his house
can hear the rain
as they unlace his
fingers from their hair

it’s like being dragged
into a string of white cars

surely nobody answers
the door around here

i didn’t mean to scare you

it’s just that
some families
are black holes

you never meant
to sink into

some want you
to find your keys

some will hide
them from you
and apologize

some are antlered

some are white
and full of lies

THE FUTURE IS A SPOON

a dress a broken
vase a belly button
full of shadows

strange how
every city
is made of
stairwells

every lieutenant machines
secrets for mouths

I know why
you chose to be
in your desk
on time

when the screen’s
gone dark

when the cubicle
across from
you is empty

its ledges
too high

let me
give you
one piece
of advice

neither pill
is real and
you were
never born

like a field of dead
batteries

a fetus you
couldn’t
afford

I’M SORRY I LEFT YOU WITHOUT ALL YOUR PIECES

One day a girl grew
snakes out of her.

She hadn’t touched
herself since Christmas.

You ever have teeth where
you didn’t expect them?

Talk to me about purity.

There’s a lizard
inside me with
nothing left but
the long part

Close your mouth

Scoot down closer
closer

I can see
all the light
that congregates
inside you

Not sorry

Robin Lee Jordan is the coordinator of the Just Buffalo Writing Center, a free creative writing center for teens, and started the coin-operated, mini-art exchange (B)uffalo (A)rt (D)ispensary. She received her MFA in Poetry from Oregon State University and her poetry and lyric prose have been published in journals such as Dream Pop Press, alice blue review, Puerto del Sol, Paper Darts, Peach Mag, and My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry (Blazevox).