ROBERT FERNANDEZ

from Summer of Love

*

I partner
with Zig-
Zag to
design
a line
of rolling
papers for
the launch
of a strain
of Sappho-
colored
crippy

*

I want
no one

I want
you

*

if you
rinse

me down
noodles

tonight
pasta

crown
don't

drown
pasta

with
wormholes

and
violets

Dover Beach

kiss me on
the mitral
valve

I burst out
laughing
like a vomit
of spliffs

I carry a
mirror in my
purse to signal
the stars

I'm leaving
some light
shavings

here like
some damned
kid eating
purple cotton
candy

*

why don't you
light your
hair on
fire and
call it
the future?

*

play dice
with a master
and watch him
vomit red
candies
into toilets
like sunlight
on your knees

Robert Fernandez is the author of the poetry collections We Are Pharaoh, Pink Reef, and Scarecrow. He is co-translator of Azure, a translation of the work of Stéphane Mallarmé. His poems have appeared in Huizache, The Nation, The New Republic, Poetry, Transition, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. www.robert-fernandez.com