Dreck

Jon Oldenberg

Perfect Alexandrines

- the blonde smalls of your hair
pleating everything peach
dogsong an alternate
shadow hormone for dreams
your face was bald and twinned
dreamrotting on the couch
in all my favorite shirts
clay from your buried nose

--

you vomit on my chest
promise you are okay
smelled dearly of peachfuzz
and old lamb formula
can you keep down warm milk?
juice from sugar droppers?
I wipe the furred cheek
of the faultless cockroach
sorry for gutting you
your one and only home

---

dreaming about the new
volatile minerals
a peachling whisked away
from six ingrown branches
cast into a copper
tenebroso your tears
bore an almond contour
and wore the castaway mink
I got beat with hugo boss
belt buckles and you said
you could relate you said
I was so beautiful
boy toy in avant-garde
instruction manuals
my pale sunflower still
brightening the concrete


Milder Lucifer

I could know more
about the Midwest
At its center the heart
A butterfly in a seed jar
fluttering

Someone showed me
the forbidden tree
How to lasso
the golden calf
the plastic steer
So

what? God will turn me in
-to dirt Shame me down
rigorously in His ranchita
Alone with some advice
beside His other
godling roses “ease into

what’s manageable”
--Wrong: find the ugly Word
“shit” or “suffuse” Early on
the veranda stunk
in my head Think once
I’m depressed
then five times fast
shit shit shit shit shit—
suffuse, suffuse, suffuse, suffuse,
suffuse

Things could be worse

I paralyzed my sister’s pet butterfly
misted his wings with a sugar dropper
Only there is no magic against death Only

evidence:
arrowheads
favorite shirts
pop guns in the road
teeth burnt out like stars
His gnome visibly startled; flensed
like “Bloodhail” on vinyl






John B. Oldenborg (he/him) called Tallahassee home. He recently graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with an M.F.A. in creative writing. His work appears or is forthcoming at Secret Restaurant Press, Petrichor, Tilted House, Masks, Hobart, Misery Tourism, Rougarou, Grotto, and elsewhere online. https://johnblakeoldenborg.wordpress.com/