An (un) Thanksgiving Poem

A little diddy I wrote for Alice's class last year, which was published, and oddly enough, received some fan mail.

Wrist Fatigue

I stir figure nines
in the gravy until
a larger constellation comes
to deceive me.

It’s not gravy ya stirrin’, it’s the whole
goddamn dinner. Doncha fuck it up.

I know the consequences
for a fuck
up and I won’t.
I realize the thick tar
streaming from my
grandmother’s neck.

Ma I gotta wrap the meat.
Hold mah beer, Mattie.
Whatchu studyin’ again?

The sublime taste of subordination—
her tar is creeping its way
past chair legs, under carpet coil,
and the origin of the earth decides
to reveal itself to me in the center
of a gravy twister.

Go write me sommore poems
how bout mah drinkin’ and shit
or that waitress at D’s with the nice
tits.

The stove contemplates near
misses as the ooze rises to
ankles. It’s too hot here
and if I wanted to, one nod
and my face would slide
cool as heaven
into the gravy.

I’m savin’ my bones for the pie.

She secrets hornets
in her hair and never knows
the time of day.

Stirrin’ gravy’s the most important
thing, yah know. You’re burnin’ it
that way. Crazy shithead.

There exists no entropy
merely a lack of will to want
to do better,
to stand up to the deer mounted
on the dining room wall, take
its ruddy lips against mine
and whisper
No, No, you shut up.