from Kids of the Black Hole
that which wakes in the cracked mirror of morning
which is a fetus dreaming on the seat of the bus
which is a violent body in its tender bed
which eats its fishsticks sad & alone
which knows the holy afterbirth smells of semen
which folks all call the blue-vein minor
which sees the tunnel pulse with the clot white blood
which was dumped from a truck on the burial ground
the drunk jocks swarmed round, they said Fuck the soil
I turned my headphones down to hear the dead
I had a lover’s quarrel with a pile of leaves
I had a lover’s quarrel with my bedsheet tent
I came down running to the county seat
I met Death in the bleachers he was eating a burger
he had a book in his hand, I said What are you reading
I rot on the outside & incubate bodies
they call me the spider with the dead-leg twitch
they call me the cockroach in garbage bins
I was hood-up asleep by the library homeless
O I swell & verily unhatch the gate
for my vibrant body I want to leave it
for I know the purity of water burials
from Kids of the Black Hole
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
I laugh in the face of your virile bodies
from Kids of the Black Hole
I dreamed I was a nightwalker
I dreamed it was lunchtime & I fought the monitor
I slashed him in the belly with my poison rapier
I did it Van Gogh style on the side of the head
I did it samurai-style with the L-shaped cut
he was holding his gut screaming holy mercy
with blood wet on the tiles & his innards pouring
they were like corn mush covering up the plates
they were like the sloppy joes that Gertrude made
I dreamed I was facedown in some mud in the woods
I dreamed I was a cat floating dead in a brook
with a prophecy hidden in its glassy eye,
I dreamed I met the devil on the side of the road
we walked in the cornfield & the moon was swollen
he didn’t want my soul, he wanted me dead
he knocked me with a crowbar & then I woke
they broke me with their buckets of number two pencils
they said, Get your skinny ass up that rope
they broke me in the skylight with the blackfly bodies
they broke me with their coke-eyed football sons
they broke me with thirteen cans of Axe
they broke me in the boy’s room with hands on my neck
Do you choke your chicken? they whispered softly
they broke my skin purple with graven fingers
they broke me with chick-nuggets inside of my jockstrap
they said, Do you know the secrets of the pubescent world,
they broke me with interminable amounts of ketchup
my towels sopping in the base of the shower
_________________________________________________
“Death and Sylvia Plath” by Dorothea Lasky
_________________________________________________
Marty Cain is an MFA candidate at the University of Mississippi, where he edits the Yalobusha Review. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in The Journal, HTMLGiant, Rattle, Similar:Peaks::, Moss Trill, and elsewhere.