Elegy to the Saint Thomas Projects
By Christopher Lirette



Even the trees are dangerous.
Road’s a motherfucker. There’s only one
place for times like these, a TV
with cartoons in any color,
wrought iron like wrought backs
blazing in the gaslamp sun,
and, of course, our guns.

But summer’s so close to the river.
And they’ve invented the portable radio. Bodies
are print we forgot to learn in school,
but we sure as hell intuited it,
faint tattoos you kissed
into my deltoids, your tanktop
a sweet shade of nasty.

If only H.U.D. came with an A.C.,
my dream and surely yours, but we
made do. Mama away at a bingo game and you
dripping sno-ball blue all over
my estuary. We’re out of napkins,
but not out of you, babygirl turned stucco
pink, and when you grew up

and got tits, you became uncontainable.
I became a rider. All of a sudden
there were no gates. No optical leash
from mama. And most of all, no
more funding for bounce and ball.
You think I could impress you with my bike?
Shit, I’d have been lucky

to crawl back through our hollow
doors and sweat it out, lie
back smelling time go by. I imagine
there may be something for us
with less cement and formica. Something commercial
and bright. One day, with money
I carved into this creaky rot mattress,
I’ll sell and get you the hell out.

© 2009 prickofthespindle.com