we averted our eyes from the blown-out tire
by animal instinct, though it was not flesh,
its singed inverted fibers waving invertebrate
in the blackened wind. at the horse-themed
mexican restaurant, i took 1 photo of my body
in the mirror and my phone died. body my house my
STORMIN PROUD PAPA my HANDFUL OF PEARLS
body my $75,000 purse and that’s in aughts money
before the recession hit. o throat that triple a called ma’am
again, o babyface that the tire place, full of mercy,
failed to gender at all. at lunch the next day i kept locking eyes
with a mural of a tom at the movies, a HOT BUTTERED LOSTCAT,
though the sun glided into my eye like boiling oil for
galaktoboureko and octopus and chickpeas and beets,
grease that wept from the eggplant when squeezed
just like my shoulders do. yet i still sat dazzled by dappled
spectres of jockeys, the only boy-shape whose door
i fit through. what is someone like me good for?
speed, mud-splattered harlequin, and you saying
my beautiful boy, and slamming the gas on this thing
as hard as possible before it runs itself into the ground.