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transform your loss into a second head now don’t delay

rose Zinnia

Audio: Rose Zinnia reads.

Forage a pumpkin tendril from the City’s most
crepuscular dirtpit. Cull the minotaur’s ravaging
salve of lostness. Tenderly unfurl Medusa’s snake
emblazoned shower cap after she’s fallen
asleep in front of the smartscreen, her favorite
camouflage chair squeaky with the lift
and lilt of her breathing. Place all in hollow
Jerusalem donkey skull. They’ll want to cuddle
& curdle. Let them, for a little—then break it up.

Wonderful. Now:

Ferment the sound that flew out
your mother’s mouth when she found
her mother dead at ten. Let sit for what
according to Gregorian calendars
is sixty years. Access every ochre moon
alone in monkish robe. Swirl in the sap
of what we might’ve said. Bake and
broast and broil until there’s nothing
left but a teensy-itty-screamy-black-
tornado-clot-core-coal and your neighbors
are all outside, peering in wide-eyed
at your lifeshow like a smartscreen,
& it’s not even garage sale day.

And then the house
is a flame. And you are
standing in it. And you are it.
How? It’s incredulous. To say the least.
To annihilate. It that burrowed its way.
Into your innocent. Infant-iris. Wove all
over and over. Till it made you believe
it was you. Indistinguishable now.
Inextinguishable. Now.

But here comes god
bless them right on time
like a shower
of rain on the blazest
day a fresh swath
of centaurs
swaying & baying,
a dhow in a whale’s
tummy, holding
with their hooves
a gigantic corduroy glow
in the dark hose
spraying ravens
indiscriminate.

Good. So:

Bury the tornado in the front yard
next to the friend who chugged bleach,
and the ones dead from dope,
and your first dog, and the black squirrel
you tried to bring back to life
from a felled tree in a bright orange
Nike shoebox who you named
Chicken for some reason. Say all their
names again. And again and again.
Socket your head into the ground
next to the tornado and the dog-gone-
friends-squirrel named Chicken and just
listen. Just do it. Do a headstand with
your face still buried, making sign
language with your legs, a poem
you could never get just right.

Perfect.

You may now notice the clot-core-coal
has actually attached to your bio-head, rooting
like a peckish pig, becoming its own, second
head in this way. Rise up. Do ordinary things
with your newfounded-twoheadednesss
and if someone has the audacity to comment on it
just say, o yeah, this is my new head, & continue on
with your merrymaking. Feed it an abundance
of applesauces. Walk around the grocery store
with a cart full of dragonfruit humming
I want to break free to people
who don’t like music, who don’t
even know they are song.

After what feels like a solid montage
of clot-core-bonding, invite your Father over
casually, like let’s say, to watch a sportsgame,
then, when he is mid nacho-dip, mouth agape,
ask him to chop off your new head
with the inexplicable plastic
scythe he has in his left butt pocket,
the one worn-white from a wallet.
Say, Dad would you be so kind
as to chop off my head
with your inexplicable
plastic scythe, you who
brought me here? O and try
not to lose too much of its
signature clot-core-coal chisel Dad!

Great. Ok:

After the decapitation ceremony, your Father
should dissolve (a mere projection, you see)
and you can hold your newly severed head
in your shimmery palm in peace. Stare at it.
Alone. For days and days. And days, and days.
And days. Maybe even more Gregorian years.
Stop when you hear a river’s floaming. Get up
(you might fall over) and store the dead-
head under your pill/ow—a tooth hoping
to become recognized currency.

Finally:

On the 300th anniversary of your pill/ow-store,
take the clot-coal to the highest point in town.
Make of your hands a fist and smash the core
into tiny bits. It’s okay to let out a little squeal here.
Go ahead. No one will hear.

Eeeeeeeeee.

Name this traumadust hallucination
as you extend your hand
over the edge of the parking garage
and blow out what’s lost,
cuz it’s your birthday.
& g-d it. We ought to
be free. & happy. A little?
Some? No:
absolutely.

OK?

Yes. (Yes?)

Yes!

Praise. Wave absently. Clap. Enjoy with friends.