Rub Paw Press

*

Breasts spilling out into the street like hail!

The clouds leave me alone in the morning, long enough to let me burrow
deep into your bellybutton.

We go for days without talking. You can’t walk by me without grunting.
Your tube tops make me feel lonely.

My feet spilling out into your bathtub like thunder.

*

Things turn up outside.

You can’t walk this late without whistling.

But in your blue dress, your thighs stood out like albino tree trunks
perfectly sanded and smooth. The mail comes and we take off our shoes.
Everything is one form of shoe removal or another.

*

This is how it always is, my face inches away from the grass and your
jeans ripped into shreds. You’re unsure of what to say, but you know
one thing: my body is a glorious anthill on fire.

And slammed doors remind me of the clouds before it storms.

*

Nothing comes from fire, nothing goes into it: stray teeth and your
collection of antique clouds.

I can’t be taken too seriously! Doors open seriously, you laugh and
cry seriously. But my stilts are leaning to the left and my head has
difficulty getting air in this thick cloud cover.

We’re falling and falling and everything seems so nice and burnt.

*

The thinnest things are always the ugliest. Our chandelier fell last
year when my hands spread apart and let thousands of bees fly into the
foyer.

Now the bees want my hands back.

I sit on this bench and watch people’s shoes and think of all the feet
inside of them.

The bees won’t find me behind this wandering group of tourists. Their
bodies are large and beautiful. The clouds are thick and fluffy.

You are thick and fluffy.

When the time comes, we’ll leave my hive for good.

*

The hard version of this cloud is your face.

We move together in parallel lines through fences and across four-lane highways.

The ground is on fire, and that’s alright. It’s alright when we steal
for good reasons.

I wanted to lay in bed with you, but there was nothing stopping us.

And so we left.

Drew Kalbach lives in Philadelphia. He is the author of the chapbook
THE ZEN OF CHAINSAWS AND ENORMOUS CLIPPERS (Achilles Chapbook Series
2008) and of the e-chapbook THEATER (Scantily Clad Press 2009)