blistercrack blacktop voice,
hotmix mind, chopped-up line
This is the output of the old and new
millennia…
We reach out to touch but there’s too much space
JD Salinger moans in our head
Sylvia Plath kills herself again and again
and again, finally gets it right, lies dead
at our feet, her children screaming… screaming
for one good mind / the kind of mind
that thinks in lines, not in dollar signs
Oh I wish I wish I wish I was born1
the girl who’s more fun / I’d show you my map2
if I only had one
but I’m black from neck to knee, black
to my shins, from my black-track feet to my V8
head, double-white-line face, eyes
desert dry
1. refers to Martha Wainwright’s song ‘Bloody Motherfucking Asshole’
2. refers to Steve Smart’s poem ‘Less the Predator’
(First published in Cottonmouth)