at times the body exists to punish us

populated by habits inherited from the enclave of bull thistle
implementing revenge upon sobriety

i breakdown to reassemble.

brutal morning will not answer itself:
hard green lemons
a casket of carnations
misfortune and her tease
my seed once nestled in utero

clutching a wreath, maya requests an armistice.

matrimony grows loathsome
a blonde boy with a penis in his palm
we are all some sort of wreckage.
violent, vanilla, dripping
with visions of summer regret

shake the bottle before administering, i mean,
death twists the plot of afternoon
to her whim

plucking cherry blossoms from her hair, maya laments—

i want to laugh at the water with a son or daughter
when the mississippi wrinkles our toes

i wipe away the makeup
ebbing into a clutter of tinkered stillness

a droplet in the squall

the coffee is cold.

Evan Anders brews coffee for mass consumption in Philadelphia. His poems have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, California Quarterly, decomp journal, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He is a retired stay-at-home dad who thinks Bob Dylan was best in the eighties. Visit Evan online at www.byevananders.com.