under the hood, the coldwater pump lets the monkey angels get us sick,
our flying fleas and millipedes read our white count and screen for the bug
the old fashioned physician treated bumps and bruises not hungry
with tube feeding, but the new slumber party cancer can't keep its solids down

we watch saints of popularity, rail thin snack on their hollow legs.
the hairless pairs of replicas dance and gossip,
while at their feet are fighting fish,
the upper half is pressing flesh-some campaign
of the neurotic black heart, a vomit competition.
the autograph is a lap dance from the gramaphone
no one will touch, they swallow stones and syllables;
the millstone makes their stomachs small
they lighten up and operate a different face just
so you'll know they're all as harmless as centerfolds.
their priorities bruised, and without memory
they had to start turning away the ghosts of ignored parents
like the old men who tend the vending machines
who've only asked to use the toilet.

plastic dresses at the biotech frontier tonight,
the pigeons are continuous, their feathers burn toxic.
this medicine animal is a misfit to the drum,
desperate to duplicate the whimper like a snapshot.
genetic jennies sip white zin and choose wall paper
for the first boy crossbred with a sneaker's new nursery,
to sit amidst change, a speak 'n' spell in his heart,
soon pacemakers will be able to run for president,
or any creature with the proper papers,
until detroit machinists, our laureates of the chariot...
jesus chrysler, cut me a break,
lay off the feelings and the spiders in the sink
and leave a depression in the wild,
a missing man without a car alarm stuck in his knee or a pager in his palm.