Rebecca Loudon

Interrogations

1.

SPANGLED (CHILD HEADED) BLENGIN. EDIBLE.

My tongue’s clapper honeypots shed sticky bodies on the sidewalk an eel pie inside the mute dwarf her gladiolas followed me I prayed to Tip eventually revealed to be a girl begged the Little Sisters of the Poor for one blasted bite she looked too much like the king crying in her nightie froze my garbage in bundles so the not so kindly neighbors could have their way bought this hat in Portugal no Germany I was German then no Hungarian now I am a Japanese soldier terrible things happened to my children America TAKE NOTE I am hungry and won’t stop one night I went on drinking far too long and alone a war held me hat and boots AIM! STRIKE! I practiced on the furious girls the gold girls wrapped their wings in electrical tape you with your eye switchers we’ll feed the next patient wild garlic paste and lily of the valley pirate radio waves Henry Henry-Hank-O-Hank I lived in Beijing Montana with Robert Pershing Wadlow Illinois’s TALLEST MAN he died of a blister furious furious girls then I drowned in a movie where they said made up things or static storms tonight I laid low under fifteen blankets war horses running past on fire I was a whore in Topeka a prostitute with lemony ripe hips and them hearts unpracticed swimmers red hands gold not warmed in the crook of my arm I think of them like whiskered rawfish horses in mud horses on fire I was a priest a detour in France my face blown clean off in a public kitchen those horses! flames jerked across their bodies let’s talk about my huge hoary lump don’t can’t can’t thicket tree swung up hard it was my hole IDEA gold and frothy air I had to skim the cream a hungry flicker with a sweet tooth under the poison what about Penrod he was a badger in the marram grass revealed to be most dangerous after I loved him when we crossed the river naked

2.

THIS HUMAN FIEND DID NOT TORMENT THE POOR CHILD FOR ANY LONGER THAN HALF A MINUTE

The orchard now full of them girls crying a red darkness I tried ice cream and rubber stoppers but they stayed dreadful quiet when I helped them ignite chicken eyes lit up fruit in all directions fully de-thinged and brown-hearted there was life in Violet lifting buckets of pears over a wall a stutter of music I made when I spoke farted burped rubbed whose room is this how do I look some lippy kid to smack my face or dredge my stick mocked in terrified pursuit a second language child dive in thrash GOD sees everything blast bung hole when the mast leans down for seeds in your pocket broken matches she was not welcome mocked my overcoat bulging pockets territorial cow dipped into my soup the gypsy’s din and crash gave herself to death like that clucking the hole time I leaned out the window all my whiskers between a wedding like a jerked-out baby I and her it was a hot time lickable polished shoes a white sheet tied tight in the heartland seeds and beans Hettie's pitted face called for tumor called for kelp land-locked as she were in me I danced a long time before I remembered the sweets and their secret brother

3.

THEY ARE LOCKED IN A HOUSE WHICH IS SET ON FIRE

a concentration camp for dollies that opened closed their fists corn trembled skinny legs while herself slippered applauded by princes hung sheets to dry their urine smell carried on aching legs yellow hair little socks those girls were not soldiers under my thumb my stained thick THUMB I told them time and agin hush now you be hush or there will be no more horse or ice cream I disliked children my entire life and now they crawled over me like barnacles I knew the sea in Mongolia slapped with sticks raised in the river gave me Shaman powers it was my heartland power over horses and noises of all kinds I made a GREAT SACRIFICE a perverse gift of wooden boxes paint boxes milk boxes the ribbon from a coat submission of the flesh God’s breath enraptured through my hair and I breathed it into them my own my gold creations fair girls pink ears the flowblow of their lungs HUSH NOW I’VE HAD ENOUGH I strode on my rush horse strode and never looked back I was not a general my eyes too bad for seeing battle I was there to witness to pluck children like almonds put them in my box no myth no muse milk-swarmed insects in the wounds like a FATHER so many so many so many nights when breath pinched my throat I picked at the seams of my coat pulled my whiskers to the side tried to talk not bash my head into the wall in case the whole shithouse blew up in flames

Rebecca Loudon lives and writes in Seattle. Her latest book is Cadaver Dogs published by No Tell Books. She is a professional musician and teaches violin lessons to children.