Carla was on her break from the graveyard shift
at the mayonnaise factory
She sat at a teetering picnic table
There was a toxic orange moon and it was slightly cold
Carla took out her knife and
began etching random words into the table’s surface
Then she thought of her co-worker Jack
Carla liked to think of Jack as a luscious apparatus
He was meaty but graceful
His flesh seemed folded onto his body
like a suit made of meat
Carla started to think of Jack
as a luscious apparatus in a meat suit
Thinking this gave Carla a dreamy smile
Her mouth was small to begin
with but dreaming made it even smaller
That’s just how some people are,
their mouths get smaller with the dreams
Carla’s small mouth was dreaming
As her knife began carving a poem into the table
I like hot voids, smooth pants,
lazy beds in the rain
I like tongue petals, lather,
a blistering sun
But what I like best is the worship of a luscious apparatus
When Carla was done carving
she went back to her work station
And scooped shiny white goop
into jars
That’s just how some people are
their mouths get smaller with dreaming
The next day Jack took his own
1a.m. lunch break at the same picnic table
He noticed the poem carved into the wood
Although he didn’t know who had written it, he co-incidentally thought
‘Luscious apparatus’ aptly described him
So he took out his own knife and wrote luscious apparatus was here
After a few days both Jack and Carla happened to sit
at the picnic table at the same time
They both started to look at the things carved in the table
Then they looked at each other
They knew who each other was
Carla’s mouth got small and dreamy,
Jack’s eyes got round and hot.
When they got done with the graveyard shift
They went back to Jack’s apartment and had sex
Wordless sex, slow sex, fast sex talking sex
Sex like animals have, sex like boys have, sex like girls have
Sex upside down, sex inside out
Sex with grins, sex with tears
Sex, sex, sex
Then she noticed the knife by the side of Jack’s bed,
Jack picked the knife up
And Carla knew at once that Jack’s wounds
were from carving himself
Jack was trying to carve poems into himself
And now he wanted to carve some in her
This was where she drew the line
She’d have any kind of sex
but not with a knife
When Carla refused to let Jack carve her up,
Jack felt cheated and misled
He felt that by carving a poem in the table
Carla had been begging to be carved upon
Carla didn’t see it that way at all
She got up and started putting on her clothes
Jack went nuts, he was coming at her with a knife
Carla was scared,
Carla was shaking and sweating
Then, because she was small and could move fast
She ducked and Jack tripped and fell
And impaled himself in the arm with his own knife
He howled and howled and
Carla got the hell out of there fast
Carla didn’t think of Jack as a luscious apparatus after that