Terita Heath-Wlaz

 

 

 

[Thin Ugly Veil]

 

Kick an elk kelp

It cracks into an ink blot, a pair of kidneys.

 

My little Neo-Freudian.

Collecting GI Joes

Cultivating a terrible mustache

Until much later when you understand your motive.

Like a bank account

It has its own momentum.

A shelving unit teeming with armageddon.

 

Immunity.

Of course I haven't got it.

My regular pottering rears up its horse's head

Much bigger than anything.

 

Its up there showing off.

It refuses to illuminate anything.

Why have I built this small habitat.

A fort from the moveable tiles of books.

Why have I begun wearing silver rings.

 

 

 

 

[Good Packaging]

 

People inside coats

Stitching pathways on the common in discreet packages.

Even the very intimate and even me, my whole person mysterious,

I keep saying that I feel like I'm inside a sausage casing.

A mud. A museum.

 

I realize in the subway tunnel that cities are like

Jars containing different types of candy.

Interesting / Boring ones.

A ribbon candy snake, bulbous in the long cranium.

Or a raisin.

 

People sometimes wear eyeglasses.

What do I know, they might have bad vision.

A museum. A square.

 

Wet snow starts meandering around town

To its own embarrassment

Having forgotten all about me.

 

 

 

 

[God-Rays: Big Time]

 

I am unconscionably small.

Standing under the tinny rain plinking on a vent.

 

He spots the storm coming in from the open water

Even as the stupid sunset looks like heaven.

We pick out a cloud that seems habitable

Though we've had too much sex to earn it.

 

I peer and squint

There's a gray thing happening at sea.

I tell him I can't see storms or erections in jeans.

I have a variety of other skills

Plus the regular human frailties:

My body is valuable and at the same time

Worthless as packing material.

I am unconscionably small.

 

Our thighs are bloodied in the kitchen but

Completely unrelated.

Go ahead and make those pierogies.