#19
      The "Do You Have Lots of Faults Too?" Issue

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OKLA ELLIOTT

The Parable of the Worm in the Apple

Resistant red skin
when fresh and undented—
the worm smushes its headless mouth
futilely against.

But weather wears softness into the flesh
till push-mouthing gets Willie Worm in
the serpent's globe. (Or is it Eve's? God's?) No one's
watching as Willie works all this while,
worried in his wormy way
a bird will snatch him by his ass-less other end
and eat him up (chirpity-chirp!).

But the gods of burrowing—worshiped also by mole
and centipede—smile their dirt-y smiles
upon our hero. He is in
an infinite heaven, a buffet without end.

And Willie has a message
for uptight philosophers with rules like Kant
and for uptight lovers who want to let go but can't:

When the worm in the apple has feasted
the apple is in the worm.

Shibboleth, Beginning and Ending with Lines from Kim Ch'un-Su

Now I will go with my flower eyes open . . .

My father's eyes and your wet eyes go with me,
angry dead and angry alive.

Like cracked brick, like pristine anarchy,
we sprawl on this carpet, my rough fingers
in your hair.
              Odd that we hope not to lose
or make life by our fucking.
                                          I'll go

to where my father's bright eyes lie dead,
and scream out nonsense—swift dog! red car! cold day!
You'll hear this and know it
as our shibboleth. You will speak it,
though not to me . . .
                              I'm sorry . . .

I haven't answered your question.
                                                        But lie here,
and I will lie here, on this green carpet.
We'll make our decision once it's too late.

. . . we are not filled with tears nor made of brass.

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