What's the matter with a head
in a crate in an ocean
liner drifting west. You sang
silently to the radio of
a birdhouse hanging you
on the hour. Your
chest's opened, crippled batteries
static towards us beneath
the blast-failed shelter by-
passing the letter's
better ending. Hitch your
body to the kind of bomb
cameras skirt. I should shred you
an elaborate and organic salad, I should
release an army of feral cats with
which to become invisible.
What's me in a headlock
but me in a headlock
and that's it?
You know I'm only good
when the sirens come.
Stop betting on silence.
I never promised you a rose
garden, but here it is, a rose
garden, and another rose garden.
Let's use puppets to act out
our deepest sexual nightmares.
Lets call a fox trap by its name.
Let's play jacks
with a bottle rocket and every
thorn we can grab.
Let's promise
to always wake up
strangers.
Tyler Patrick Smith is from Rochester, NY but lives in Redwood City, CA. He has recent poems in Interrupture and El Aleph Magazine.