The grenade in my head

is set to go off promptly at 10am

Monday morning

before the milk man has

finished his rounds

he likes to stop off and place a bet on

Mystic River, a horse with no sense

the neighbor who is sleeping

with the other neighbor who wears anklets in winter

you know the one, perma-tan-all-year-long

may raise his head from her hollowed thighs

momentarily

but unexplained noise is common in big cities

you can scream down 10 stories of

old pipe and not get a blink

from the scrawny pigeons who roost among vintage Playboys

you can stand on roof tops clad in torn hose

and combat boots and never see a soul

something desperately lonely and quite wonderful

about surging, pulsating metropolitan centers

where everyone is walled off and yet

come Saturday, I can dance with a stranger

enough to get pregnant by, if I want

the shove and mold of dark lighting and urges

making for a late cocktail

once I got on my knees and fellated

a man whilst not having to put out my cigarette

it felt ugly and I laughed all the way down the street

hoping there’d be hot coffee at the 7/11 on the corner

but women aren’t supposed to be exhilarated by deviance

unrepentant, sexual in categories that don’t match

your ironed newspaper expectations hung on your hypocrisy

I think I saw you walking past once, in the financial district

crisp and filthy like a dollar bill – big glasses to disguise your yellowed sneer

you still wanted me

even as I wasted away, powder between my discolored fingers

chasing away that feeling I first had

when I was ten years old and they pressed

grunting and sweating over my childhood bed

and tore it to shreds

teddies look forlorn when you cut their heads off

don’t be sad if you don’t receive anymore

dead birds through the post, blood’s getting pricey

your wife is planning on poisoning you this evening

but like me, when I’m high on business men and horror

she’s going to ensure

death creeps up

slow and sweet.