ALLIGATOR MUSIC
The world is a widescreen dream,
but it’s what we’ve got.
The toenail moon grants us
sleep and silence,
rocks us blues and purples
each blurred and sloppy night
while the sun shines solid as a sigh.
I know I need more vitamin D,
I know I could settle for forked
& accursed and just smog up
with my arms folded, my under-
carriage protected. Must be
gobsmacked and cruel, must be
a stubborn Southern alligator
to arrive back where you started
and start smashing your pink
and butter brains out
against the bleary mattress
of the house that was your
childhood home. Out of
lost gusto. Out of thwarted
love that will redeem you.
Out of faith in the unsteady
bedrock of the landslide
to pickle and boil you
into an openness
bright as the summer heat
on an upended rockpile.
Jeff Fallis is a Ph.D. student in creative writing at the University of Georgia. His poems have appeared in publications like The Oxford American, The Iowa Review, and Ploughshares and in the anthologies Blues Poems and The Art of Losing.