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We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
I used to work construction.
I had a hole in my head the size
of an ankh. My gut was a body bag,
full of tanks. Inside every tank, a prize.
No one owns the Loa. I bought a prayer
and a wing, twenty American dollar.
The child’s toy poses a choking hazard.
The child, too. Life’s a natural disaster.
I capture smoke within my coffin
and offer it to Dr. Strange.
They say that light’s the only constant
but I spend all day watching it change.
I wish people changed half as often.
The white goat is a fertility god.
The black giraffe is a wishbone
in the snow globe of the scorpion. And me?
I’m your host, Jack Kevorkian.
Michael Robbins is author of poems in The New Yorker, Poetry, and Fence and the forthcoming book Alien vs. Predator.
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