...
"Hello," she lied.
She was dressed in black with
enough piercing to swing a compass needle
at five paces, some
real Mexican prison tatoos,
and a voracious appetite for an astonishing variety of
extremely dangerous drugs.
"Hi," I said.
"I'm into natural highs like hiking and paint thinner.
What about you?"
It's like when you turn the box on at three AM
and the offscreen boyfriend turns out to be
George Sanders and you say,
Oh boy, this isn't going to go well.
I fear she will fashion my skull
into a decorative fruit bowl.
But everything's changed since 7/11.
I was hanging out in Osama's Home Abortion Porn and
Jizzorama with
My girlfriend, Blanche Davidian,
Miss Conduct of 1985.
Did anyone question my freshness?
Surprisingly, no. I was like a
poodle on linoleum I was so nervous.
"Gee," I said.
"You're the prettiest girl that's ever talked to me,
you know?"
Later she died of a broken heart.
Or rabies.
Love hurts but
you usually have to pay more.
"I'll miss you at first," I said.
I was abandoned by wolves and raised by Republicans, no,
I was abandoned by wives and raised by Republicans,
and both my parole officer and court-appointed psychiatrist
will attest to my character.
Somewhere, even as we speak,
Donald Rumsfeld is planning the invasion of Bolivia.
People come to watch.
They sell popcorn.
It's a carnival of ugly.
But that's not what your mother said last night.
I told her not to talk with
her mouth full.
Stay tuned there's
more crap to come.
Sal Salasin is the author of Stepping Out of the Plane Under the Protection of the Army (Another Chicago Press, 1988) and Optima Suavidad (Greenbean Press, NY, 2000 - order from greenbeanpress.com or amazon.com), as well as the online (free) collection 12 Cautionary Tales. Sal is the founder, publisher, and managing editor of RealPoetik. He currently lives, studies and writes in a working class neighborhood in Guadalajara, Mexico and can be reached at salasin@scn.org.