Vent Trickles 1.2 by Jay Snodgrass

Sweet enormous bread-pan,

the brain, il cervello, prelude to stitches

and sleeping god of DIAGNOSIS

on your heels the sacrifice, lurid

still agoggle, blasted two ways to history

listening for the sounds


of assurance that the lord wears shit-kickers.

The city is composed of roadmaps

a full scale whimper and office complex,

the erosion of rain unfreezes new hamburger joints

malted Hercules in a dress, too strong but still

praying for the ax, the redeemer’s quiet candor,

Ortega, the family moon, dipping its donut

to the awful horse-smell of Hialeah, her belt loop

unearthing some hyper calculated slip of quivering flesh,

the moose horn and the milkshake,

each neighborhood’s set of jiggling driveway reach-arounds:

portions of the lobe which receives tire treads.