2007

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Matthew Guenette

 

Playing Poker with the Gods

 

The Gods say raise your hand and repeat after us:
drink this kool aid, wear this fig leaf,
try on these rockets and missiles for size.

 

Is everything wrapped in a womb of red velvet?
Even the hedgehog?  The Must-Be Gods.
The Gods of Bit-by-Bit.

 

I say these gods are killing my teeth
like a tray of revolving sweets.  I say the insect's
mandibles should remind us enough

 

not to tip these undertakers on the way out.
Is every god a stranger? Do you just
want money as the seasons demand?  One god

 

calls you a big sissy, another wears a cologne
called Tourniquet.  Look: there's calcium bicarbonate
on your new white shirt. The gods

 

fat and stupid change their minds like pigeons.

Fortitude: testicular.  Coleslaw: stolen.
Here among all creation, I get a splitting headache

 

because every night I have to come down here
and devour all these ashes.
Please, what am I supposed to do?

 

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Author’s Bio:

MATTHEW GUENETTE's manuscript *Sudden Anthem* won the 2007 American Poetry
Journal Book Prize. Dream Horse Press will publish the book in early 2008.
He lives in Madison, WI, with his wife and two unruly cats.

 

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