White Rabbit

Five scrabble pieces hot-glued onto dashboard tell me, "ALICE."

I. Acid Stereo

Slug’s neck swells
then tightens
as grace slick’s maple hymn
softly bleeds from
every corner

and I can smell vinegar
leaking in droplets
from pallid flesh
a reflexive response to this
silver soprano

but outside
blood-less landscapes
dragged by traffic
cross my sensory field
unsung

sticky vocals lap our ankles now
and swollen slug stiffens now
chin pulled to collar
in effort to shield ears
from new sap sound

humid hands tighten on ten and two
and I do not turn to look
but I wonder how long slug might allow
this female voice
to invade her realm

I feel souls all around me
but penned in machines
they are bacteria
or early homo sapiens
fevered with road rage

spontaneity left behind
engaged in primitive quest
to hightail past fellows
and single family houses
graft math on the earth

“I hate female vocalists”
slug would confirm
if I dared turn and question
the un-sticking of right fist
from two o’clock

single digit beating power
syrup voice
silenced
and left hanging white on ten
but I stopped listening months ago

and slug’s right palm
now grips at three
at two foggy print remains
and tells of time
that once was
or might have been

slug recalls the pipe
tells me to load it
I do
and
taking first hit
green embrace
lifts me
so briefly
from this place

II. Brave New Sound

then from across a barren blueprint I smell fire
and nostrils leading me,
I discover
a magnetic force
that wipes out slug’s landscapes of ash and soil

and at its axis
a florescent darling hands me a pamphlet,
whose cover reads: “Do not feel lonely.
The disappearing world longs
for you to touch it.”

I follow her to a golden sedan
whose peeling bumper stickers make promises
she intends to keep.
An eager passenger, I climb in.
She rolls back sunroof first, then moon.

And beautiful, frightening, feminine noise bites me hard
welcoming me
to this brave new world.
Five scrabble pieces hot-glued onto dashboard
tell me, “ALICE.”�

She had Scotch taped personal ads to the sunshield
and tied prayer flags to her mirrors
that bless the damned freeway as we ride.
And the sky opens and blankets the city
with two inches of technicolor palm sugar.

And she honks greetings to caged commuters
who let down shatterproof windows
and wave back.

Behind Sunday lenses,
dusk sings rosy on the hills
and she tells me that we are creatures unforeseen.
and we beg the dayglow to tell us secrets,
to tell us what we are.