The Painted Face of a Folk Artist

I am more myth than man
frozen as I am
cataract within my throat
from which my past erupts

I capo my neck at the fifth threat
this is a tourniquet
one syllable
one sentence
finger on the second fret

hammer down

I don’t have a name
youth wasn’t yesterday
it will be my death

when I emerge from this womb
once a child
once a tomb
my mother has no uterus

she was no pacifist
war hawk
murder spree
placenta was the food for free

there is no burning bush
just a wanton heart
beating in a rotten three

my wooden, gnarled limbs
widows attending weddings
marriage is the funeral

she has black, she has white
she has no face except a veil

that’s my mother.lover.cadaver
dancing skeleton
movie subtitle recipe

pinch the fifth nerve down
from the spine
and that’s with a-

first finger bars an entire six

you’re writing about leprosy
it’s not entirely cured
there is no antidote to suicide
politico narcolepsy

my scales are up the wall
there are muddy footprints
up the steps and into the shelves

at three twelve in the morning
I’m a running marathon