– 52 –

When I Was Fat & You Were Ugly

Look at your bruised expression,
Your features a thin grid over
Some deep & gaping absence,

Like the drains around varsity,
Gargling and scratching their pipes,
Thinking back to when there was some

Great watery garbage, when the world seemed
Packed with sludge, the foulest smelling
Grittiest bubbling sludge a drain could hope for,

When the world had an honest place for everything
No matter how dirty,
No matter how rancid & maggoty.

Look at you—
You're an open book to me sunshine!
I've got the keys to your filing cabinet!

I've rummaged through your glovebox,
I've sniffed through your litter blue eyes!
I remember it all,

Your eyes lost in the beckoning ceiling
Bring it all back.
When you'd collapse around the plump shins

Of any grease-guzzling whinger
& Erupt into pinguid conversation, cooing
& Burping kisses.

– 53 –

Ah mirror on the wall,
My empty-faced reflection,
I remember when you were fat

& I was ugly—
Life was stained with sweat & vomit,
But made sense.

Where are we now, writing poetry to ourself,
Clucking about town,
Gawping expectantly at our face in windows,

Our arms held out like letterboxes?