Ellen Welcker

from A Cyborg is a Kind of Hybrid

4.

one thing we found was the map

so beloved, and beloved, the lines were all wrong

like the leashburn sustained in one’s nostril

while hogtied and holding the baby

the advice, so difficult

to read

until slowly,    slowly,

one reads

about dancing

with the man in the man-suit too short

in the legs, in the cathedral of night crawlers,

spineless, goodbye

pitbull in a shopping cart outside 7-Eleven, goodbye

penchant for wanton and earthly things

(like that list

of our losses

salad spinner,

I don’t miss you)

the way humans evolve to rummage in basements

shouting          where

is the container            for all

of the new blood?

the yins dividing up language and things

the yangs dividing up language and things

meticulous dividing of language and things

into boy parts and girl parts

my things and your things

some things outnumbering

vastly outnumbering

13.

the bracketed world

that must be unstapled

the way humans evolve to suck sweetness through straws

the enormous piano that causes an epiphany

(one doesn’t process music appropriately)

(one is not properly moved)

one doesn’t comprehend magnitude

the magnitude of what it is

to build a grand piano in one’s mind

tell yourself you are beautiful

            then flush your prescriptions

            down the drain

don’t eat the shellfish

14.

lead with the fist and skull

            like a goat or a unicorn

            the way humans evolve to disappear amphibians, & each other

to spit and lick on this weaponry

            shining them shining them shining

so stuck in these forms

take to gesture and gadgetry

sniffing & rummaging, liking & messaging

the way humans evolve to save the proofs of their purchases

say you love freedom

            then kiss the man holding your safe word ransom

that’s an example of a conversation

between sometime darlings

Ellen Welcker is a poet between homes whose recent work can be found in Phantom Limb, InDigest, Leveler, and The Quarterly Conversation. Her chapbook, The Urban Lightwing Professionals, can be found at www.h-ngm-n.com/chaps/, and her first book, The Botanical Garden, won the Astrophil Poetry Prize (judged by Eleni Sikelianos) and was published by Astrophil Press in 2010.