fisher king's wasteland

it's africa midwinter the sun sparkling down on us all swaying from side to side to paul simon's stolen diamonds i stare at the one-armed bandit bench playing wheel of fortune as barbaric little monkeys play or fight for supremacy signified by whatever plastic trinkets can be wrenched free and us behind the cage pretending civilization as animals pour out of the silhouettes of salt shakers and condiment bottles onto our plates

the car glides in the dark smoothly up to the curb creeping right up to me under the bridge two big men with their short-cropped hair faces clean-shaven, their pressed shirts tucked in silvered-up epaulets enlarging broad shoulders hip-holstered guns about leather-belted waists they tell me of danger that lurks all around are you not from 'round here? i make no sound they close in, menacing show us, dear, what you've got smiling at each other grinning with glee then they nod knowingly recognize my anger laughing because they know how scared i am i want to go home to be anywhere but here trapped between these two hungry pressed faces in clean-shaven shirts don't worry they tell me this won't hurt the baby their fingers filthily slide all over me over every surface in every orifice rolling my textures 'tween fingers and thumbs it's dark, i barely see and that makes me wonder if the stars had been out if i would s...

i sit cross-legged on the floor rocking upon my thin mat with my bible spread open on the floor in front of me to another blank page i slap my bookmark into my palm its razor-sharp edge biting through the skin curls back as if ashamed to have been hiding such wonder blood plasma slowly begins to ooze from the cleanly sliced edges swirling into the centre drying into a hard, chitinous disc slowly, tentatively i touch fingertips to the translucent surface no longer my own flesh, but solidified yet my fingers slip through finding purchase in the unknown they grip, they tug, pull myself in after slowly, carefully, twisting through i'm peeled back as i move forward i peer into the blackness a universe unformed waiting, a great galaxy heart beating, like mine this otherwise unblemished, innocent space contaminated, right from the start for inside-out, i still carry the baggage of all my race