21.2.22

Two Poems by E. Jesse Capobianco

Lub Lub Goose

 

My tongue stays wet inside my mouth,

and when there is air there is a podunk

little sea under the skin of my face and my tongue

rests there it takes a floppy bath.

 

But I think about my jaw and how it

sits just off my want-jaw and how the

low jaw right side teeth ridge curves in,

a mountain range bashful of a lake.

 

And when I sit myself like a tongue

in the filthy face hole ocean my

tongue in tongue sits in wet in dry

and the whole sky lives a circus inside me.

 

I gulp it like a tiny church built

on a dry God-wafer. I speak face to face

with God every day and I burn like

Moses with shame He speaks

 

in quatrains and I have learned to bracket

my sadness when I masturbate. I bought

three dogs and gave them a choice:

here is a tongue here is a wet lily here

is the scent of a star.

 

They took their time they barked they

barked a lot, I grow tired every evening

brings me closer to every evening here,

take my temperature away give me

 

a nod give me a twinkle give me

some sign you can hear me and see

the flash of God’s voice off my stretchy skin.



Janus of the Cranes

 

              swing one too long metal face

              at the hinge of another and swing

 

              me spaghetti squash noodle unspool

              me and make me feel pain

I can only pass on my belongings

 

from the me in memory to me

if first the counterweights rumble

              and the hot tear of your flat grin

              and the angry oil gleam of your skin

 

              time is a string of metonyms

              and the self is a popcorn wreath

with the small sucking mouth baby

feeling its way from kernel to kernel

 

this is the best pizza in new york

              Janus of the Cranes allow me

              to keep my sentiment or barring that

allow me to forget

 

 

E. Jesse Capobianco