BRASSIER
Red-eye slough on her animated like, clear jag, nay redness, broke into pieces. Those pieces into pieces, ay. Auto-hero mother dosing high chance with real mews at her mouth, frill on her winered jaw. All sang in sun-dark there, way alone, local. Lazy coins gave out as bet to some old thought. Con the row. Fat ailbox beckoning, he lance “been” under the loom, more pieces incandescent. A dance, that last gas at the far-away morrow. And I like the seat of jeans positioned under the machine, ready for that conical mirror to lace me.
OVERPASS
In red void light changes. Skips like a stone, splinters off into the music of number. Such breaking sharpens. One sharpens not so easy. Lacquered into sad local garb whorls prism at the foot of the glass-glinted hill/at that body of water/absolute womb. One stands. One thinks of standing. Action and thought, translucent or invisible? Contaminated. Diagonal shoots to break the neck of light division. Diagonal shoots to kill. The presence of grain in pure vision. Muted over a ribbon of space: Braying human. Perfume of tobacco. The cassette rolls over, clicks, and starts again.
INTERLOCUTER
So rings ulterior jilt in the ides, my talisman.
Taupe east. Two pieces of idiotic lettuce
for dinner. I tell dog life is hard, ford
the whinny. Tell me, dog, hear me say it
back to me. The tome unfurls: my holy
last gold-crusted ornament, miles along
that hieroglyphic tabloid, an incorrigible
tear mates form to dye my image—I smear
that defect’s name, dry purr, become
what smell? What slippery center light?
Refer to the previous garbage.
I lift it to the brightening beacon.
UNDER THE DARK LIGHT OF THE GENERATOR
Colic frisks the lapel in nine tones
meant to depress & destroy
the new sanctity as dispute
warbles over the lauded goblet
into the public center, each ogre
tongues an ounce of whatever
piss on the dead is meant
to offend the living.
ALIENS & BOGS
Cutting your throat open
sticking my foot in the cut
wriggling my toes in the square
of your breath like a megastore
come to push worthless doubloons
from your useless aperture
and your fat jiggles
and your throat is made useful
as I fondle my dresses
in an earthquake-safe corner
looking at you looking
I cut a dish in your face
with my mind’s long fingernail
and the font changes
Ally Harris has poems in Agriculture Reader, Cutbank, Tarpaulin Sky's Chronic Content, inter|rupture, Poor Claudia, and BOMBLOG, as she was a finalist for their 2012 Poetry Contest judged by Ben Lerner. She graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop with an MFA in Poetry and currently teaches composition to aspiring veterinary technicians in Portland, OR.