The social lesions
By Sean Mahoney
I may take offense, may still your tongue
And your fickle ax willowing spastically
During unpredictable weather events.
As sure as the influence of big Cat.4’s
Can be felt in hair, almost like a weighted
Scent sinks itself deep into your lungs.
I believe your brain stopped bursting
When you asked kindly enough for it
to be so and so it was sealed proper.
I may watch you as you compose pictures
During the comic heat of the afternoon:
Twins, with braids and bloodied dresses.
A different rhythmic disease altogether,
Ripe, altogether issuing a personal brand
Of what we can call influence. And blue.
Ang babae, a coat, and priming people
With servants nursing in igneous folds
Feeding the social lesions, fueling distemper.
Those neighbors spreading naughty bits
Of all us about: what is left behind of you,
Behind you. Driving secures your safe
Destruction gets attributed to personal
Grease, on miscellaneous personal errors.
These galvanized nails of men and women:
For the host frost not eaten, for shining
Like fevered scat: all that jazz baby.
Desperate signatures, tempo shaking
The floor belly, tickling its ass. Head screws
Loosening from oaken boards, cracking
Themselves like possessed drumsticks.
Blackbirds singing. Black cardinal hums.
Sweat seeps from this percussive energy.
Ang lalaki: cancer on smooth heart muscles,
On subtle love bass and samples of distaste:
Stoned open, leaking your hours, my minutes
Into dark soil, social lesions crushed in service…
Sean Mahoney, "The Social Lesions" from Nine Mile Magazine, Fall 2019 Vol. 7, Nos. 1 & 2. Copyright © 2019 by Sean Mahoney. Reprinted by permission of Sean Mahoney.
Source:
Nine Mile Magazine, Fall 2019 Vol. 7, Nos. 1 & 2
(Nine Mile Books and Literary Magazine)