What The Mouth Tells
She said, You have scars in your mouth.
I guess the mouth goes through things
in the course of a life. The attempt to
emulate Chuck Smith and uncap a beer
bottle with your teeth; the lobster dinner
at Gerlinde’s cottage after six shots
of Courvoisier; the three day blow
via Wilson and an eight-ball cut
with powdered glass it felt like;
never mind the session with a lady
from the Red Zone who found
your lurid longing almost off-putting.
How bad is it? I asked Amy the hygienist,
who amiably declared I had nothing
to worry about except oral cancer.
I departed the clinic with a smile
less yellow than an hour before and my
thoughts adrift, recalling Chuck Smith
for instance, who married my cousin Maria
and is still kicking around albeit
with dentures; and I wondered
what ever happened to lovely Gerlinde
who my best friend Andy abandoned.
And what ever happened to Andy,
who split for the north without warning?
And Wilson is probably married with kids
and wearing a girdle and feeling
pretty good about how things turned
out for him, given everything.
And the lady from the Red Zone
back then already jaundiced
likely grew too cynical
to profitably ply her trade,
not unlike that john many years ago
who paid her in five dollar bills
for a taste of humiliation
and said that life, too, made him sick.
Tilt
Everything is bricking out.
Nothing turns red or black
or hits trips or boats up
without consequences.
By that I mean the man
gnawing on his knuckles
and his baby daughter
somewhere he can’t go.
By that I mean someone
must lose for someone
not to lose their head.
No ties on the green,
no gentle agreements
that lend themselves
to future scrutiny—all
must go when ding ding
ding, the dealer’s bell
indicates the last to leave
will face the wrath of
nameless fickle deities
working the ropes
of the suffering puppets.
They’ll only leave when we
weigh nothing, next to nothing,
fluttering our voided sleeves.
Exiled
from their chic salons,
a turn to purple poisons
all possibility of reentry.
Command the reasonable
parts to comply and not
brick up the orifices such
as they are. When men
begin whistling for their
dogs, the best bet is find
the nearest climbable tree.
Later, at the races, you can
bet on the horse with
no name and no jockey.
What bleeds from one
line to the other? No
body knows. It happens
like this, at the level
of lithe index digits
weaving as if a song
or a tapestry of fine
threads. A box opens
and we look inside
only to find a mirror.
Do you normally smile
when you see yourself?
Save the smile for
people who respond
to teeth with teeth.
Save the questions
for the tonsured man
sitting next to the guy
killing time before
it’s time to kill again.
Sphenoid Jam
Machinations in the globe, upper part
behind the fixed frown, a ridge of dark.
Interior light shines as a start of deep
analysis and data gathering: what is
the eventual sum that ensures fixity?
For long are the nights in this winter.
We wait for twig-delivering birds
to allow us to torch the itchy wool.
Enjoy the bare sleeves and freshness
behind the ensuing gentle rainfall.
A call to the stymied many who churn
in their barrels or have not yet washed.
Call to the yellowish river and rocks
on which you slap your garments.
Call to the bonfires burning at twilight
and the little creatures thronging
in the shadows, wondering if their
time has also come to fully engage.
Tap tap tap. Temple pain terminates
the cogitations and all is lost in blinks.
Ice relieves the heated walls but nothing
thins the skin like a shank of chagrin.
Brother On A Brown Horse
My brother on a brown horse
pretends not to know me.
In my white suit and white
straw hat, I am not surprised
his eye blinks at the sight
with pseudo-lack of recognition.
His horse nickers and gives me
the side ball glare and flexes
under his thighs. He’s put on
a few since I last saw him
and grew out a beard that makes
him look like our deceased father.
Should I call him down?
He might kick the beast and bolt
without me there to nourish him
with older brother denunciations
and liver shots and all that good
stuff I loved about our childhood.
He rides on without looking back.
Maybe it wasn’t my brother.
Maybe I don’t have a brother.
Maybe it was someone who
looked like a brother I might
have had in another life.
*****
Salvatore Difalco makes his welcome reappearance on Litbreak. He lives in Toronto, Canada. He has many relatives and friends in the US.
