I thought if I cut my hair it would seem as though I was in California.
The condition was unrequited orgasm or
not orgasm enough - a yanked picnic blanket.
Corn tassels signaling wildly.
I parked the car perfectly, no matter
the car, never mind the car.
Read Shakespeare with a monocle, just to see.
These aren't working pants, they're sauntering pants.
I wear them as though the planet were in my crotch.
Such a tidy afternoon
except the storm. August,
sun-bleached, sun-
bedraggled. When idle
love fell through, and
adoration, we all got
jobs.
Started smoking
to appreciate Pepsi more.
As though the problem
disarmed the problem
(e.g. to unstick the stuck
piano keys, we applied
chewing gum). When
the deep-fryer broke,
we heated grease with
hair-dryers. We roman-
candled: were intermittent
and arced.
We haven't yet
had the ideas that will
make us famous, and it's
killing us. It makes us all
bad lovers.
Meantime
these million machines
inventing the future
unsettle our discourse.
In the air, there's
a dryness like gravel,
like good tinder. We are
matches. Weather rustling.
The true event is waiting.
Andy Stallings lives in New Orleans with Melissa and Esme, his wife and daughter. He teaches creative writing at Tulane University, co-edits THERMOS Magazine, and is a co-founder of Exploding Swan Operations. Recent poems have been published at Clementine Magazine and I Thought I Was New Here.