Issue 3
2010
$11.95

Rip-Tooth

My father in the language of Heaven is vodka
a keening New York City
6 AM Brooklyn Bridge
so the cables sing in their sweet falsettos
as he walks blind drunk
with 2 or 3 others
after all night eating and drinking
after the live sex
(the bare stage and dry bodies grinding
their rip-tooth passion)
and the cold water’s mercury
now the sky is acetylene
the chained bay’s mercury distills/evaporates
can he taste the vapor
do the immaculate fractions shrill and push
money the thoughts of money
like serum in his veins
the slipstream taxis coining
the underworld with gold
he thinks I think he thinks
he strolls the roof of commerce
the pure brilliant edge of profit and loss
so when he comes home
and it is Cedar Rapids/not Brooklyn
the martinis shine/the olives roll
on their ornamental swords
as if wrapped in foil or glamour
he drinks/the night lengthens
cicadas drone their pre-Islamic prayers
the glass finally coming down
to this flat world in the shape of a fist
his Kirk Douglas dimple/twist of hair flashes
it is 1940-something/the late 60’s/
the boom 80’s/this is the trickle down
I tooth the first humped marker
off the little abacus/bite hard
the seam of pimento/suck the afterwash of gin