The Poetry Project

Three Poems

Gina Abelkop

from I’m a Cassowary You’re a Cassowary Too

Energy of coincidence
grows ever stronger
I watch Sissy

Spacek blue-eyed
monotone travails

“Why are you always
walking ahead of me”

Cassowary I could
ask you the same

Hell is full of brunettes
with lovelier
faces than mine I’m

shallow tonight and
often

Sleep
through rain Eat
bad cake Salt

grass The magic
of our terrible
world is that we can

eat cucumbers whenever
we want My brothers’
waxed hairless

backs Me plucking
away at my face

Cassowary cares not She’s
feathered with purpose
The harlot’s red car parked

across the way
We like her

When doing dishes
I hear the best songs

High to low
syncopated dirges
for daydreamers

Cassowary

they are songs

you’d like
Emily

Tetherow said “I want him
to owe me something”

I gift you Cassowary
that something Carrion-

scented flower beside
my bed all purple and spiky
phantom meat To smell
like meat in the

thinning morning That’s it
What I want Cassowary

All fresh Unhandsomely free

No you may not see the horse
you also may not ask about it

What’s stronger

than you is an ambush
of what you once knew

Colliding Cassowary
in my backyard

My ass more
delicate Aqua

sea foam green
polyester Rhinestoned
floral scarf in tones
of brown Red velvet

Men everywhere Bonnie’s
toenail moon

Lagunitas because I love that song

What do you smell
like Cassowary a cow
a horse fowl something
new or old I never did get close
enough Cassowary get close

get close to me and touch
I sleep too much
I sleep all the time I eat

I eat fruit too My dog

eats fruit we all do

Women

Women I love them In sitcoms
they run after
each other when they
cry

If you drink too
much they pass you

a glass of water under the toilet
stall door you know

them only by their hands

Manson Girls

Who picks them up

Around here hitchhikers
look like Charles

Manson I had
my first dream about here:

sleeping under a blanket of water

ocean flooded
to produce
a dead body

I was scared thinking

I’d awake with the body

atop me On top

of the water In my green

bed I’m pathetic trying
to understand

the automotive industry
Which high heels

to keep which to sell

Deco lavender
suede an obvious

candidate for both Even

my baths are lavender Even
my tea When I see a girl

who looks

like Charles Manson—

but girls

never look

like that

Issue 10

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