Day after day, a man
describing a rabbit’s death cry
gets it all wrong.
It’s like the tiniest screw,
for which there is no tool.
No, it passes from the mouth
like rare coral beads smuggled
under the tongue. But it’s not
a sound, it’s a scar, a useful one,
a vaccination mark.
It is a candy never meant to be
eaten. It’s a sugar burn,
the worst kind in the kitchen.
No, a terrarium’s breath.
A date scratched on the cell wall.
A bombazine gill net.
No, I bet I’m still in love,
that’s usually the problem.

Paper Lantern Held Gingerly

Your heart
Is furred like a tongue

Lined with pitcher plant mohair
Patched with moleskin

Trickled with red at the seams
Open-toed you might imagine

With red nails but no it’s stand-offish
A shiner under the sunglasses

Kerchiefed and chic
Exhorting marshaling disallowing

It sweats the sheets
It brims with overdose

Your heart is an anchoress
Raptured with visions

It rides brooms peacocks
Strings garlands on antlers

It warms its belly with its tail
It cools itself with dorsal fins

It can spend days grooming itself
Your heart has been held before you

It left you for a fling with an ex voto
It sent you valentines

Electrocardiograms
You took it back

Your ribs are hung with decaying gowns

The Nighthawk Takes a Gander

At the counter, chili and coffee.
The night: rainy, cigarettes, hats.
Word on the street is
you don’t got the balls no more.
Angora, nylons, lipstick,
they’re probably onto something.

Stiletto heels, steel toes,
the stool spins, save yourself
some shoe leather.

Before, before?
You were another man.
Chorines, picnic hampers, promises. . .
A refill, crumble some saltines.

She works across the street.
Dresses the windows.
Looks smart. Walks home alone.
Been a long time.
Hard to say why.
Don’t bust it open again.
You’re gonna. You’re gonna
sidle cross the street
and take a gander. Why?
It’s the chicken’s day off.

Corwin Ericson lives in Western Massachusetts where he works as the managing editor of the Massachusetts Review and as a college professor. Work of his has been published in Crowd, Lit, Slope, Fence, Volt, Jubilat, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere.

 Corwin

 Ericson