How do we bury our dead?

 

How do we bury our dead?
We’re already outnumbered by computers, 4 to 1.
The street (like our missives) works by association.
There’s a quieter place, but everybody there has a red rash.
The tree in the next yard over is hideous with hair.
The pink and blue sky commends us to this earth.
Animals float in an oily bath.
We serve fancy ice cubes with the salmon loaf.
The mouth is darker than ever, without whiskey to pry it open.
Domesticated parrots fuel the shoulders of some guests with guano.
Clouds came too, and embraced the sun, obliterating our view of the horses.
We can’t afford to keep our horses in shoes, the dish-rags.
We hate spending money on water and Uncle hates anything to do with ice cream.
We may as well give up and will our special glasses to the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Arlene Ang’s latest poetry collection, Banned for Life was published by Misty Publications in 2014. Her poems have appeared in Ambit, Caketrain, Diagram, Poetry Ireland, Poet Lore, Rattle, Salt Hill as well as the Best of the Web anthologies 2008 and 2009 (Dzanc Books). She lives in Spinea, Italy. Website: http://www.leafscape.org.

 

 

 
Valerie Fox‘s books include The Rorschach Factory, The Glass Book, and Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (co-written with Lynn Levin). Much interested in collaboration, she has published many poems and stories with Arlene Ang. She is also part of group of Philadelphia artists combining dance, word, and visual arts in projects known as “Variable Space.” She has published in Juked, West Branch,Hanging Loose, Painted Bride Quarterly, Apiary, Sentence, Mead, and other magazines.