where are the brutal agencies
coiling beneath my mounds of fat?

are they not hungry?

hunting and sweating and looming over bed frames

nailing windows shut
adjusting oil lamps
taking photos

where are the stench animals
that wet the corners of
motel room psyches
mouths full of smoke
loins heavy with savage mud?

are they not on the edge of menace?
are they not reciting lullabies in little girl voices?

folding white floral paper
cloning cell phones
touching reptilian skin in the heat of the grave

O’ how quickly they come and go
in their taut, spidery cheongsams
elephant trunk shorts
the dizzy sprawl of purple lace
slendering arm of sores

brutal are
the agencies of flesh
making home
in the skull of lard
in the shadows of a fester moon

where are her mistresses?
her flowers in ziplock?

bodies
in
purgatory red

mouths full of swords and mirrors?

are they not thirsty?
ad delirium in the desert?

sweating and looming over beds of malice
lips, curled in the manger
slowly twisting the knife

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