the linguistic condition of a polyglottal tongue
He used pellucid in a line
to describe the ease with which
he'd separate
his wife
from the time he wished to spend
having sex with me.
For something so obvious
and clear the heaviness
of his linguistic condition
seemed foreign
but probably sincere
if you believe sleeping under the
stars after travelling far
enough to wonder if he possessed
some sort of supernatural gift
when he sent a small
selection of photos
without a head, without a chest,
without any shoulders
and missing the left leg.
It was worse
than any emergency
amputation. His hands
were busy asphyxiating
something so messy and grotesque
I felt overwhelming
sympathy
for his wife
swimming in the exudate
of his gangrenous life.
what the family man forgot to write
The family man would never admit to the incessant screams
of his fat ugly wife so he writes how she watches TV, drinks
a cup of tea from a big clunky mug, how sometimes she laughs
and laughs when he peeps through pink tortoiseshell curtains
which most likely are hideous plastic that miss the match in the
rented room in the Housing Commission Street for deadbeats
breeding like parasitic fleas. Not that the family man finds fleas
because his wife knows how to scrub dirty things clean. Given
half the chance she'd be bending over the bathtub or the sink,
her bum wrestling well worn elastic leaving pinch marks on flabby
pink skin falling over and out second hand clothes stretching
all the way to oblivion like the time the family man went bankrupt
so they had no choice but to move to another weary and run
down joint the family man's friend with the anxious blue eyes
takes xanax when he drives to perve on strippers, then talks as if
the women actually care and when he realises they don't
he stalks them on the phone and panics if the Police arrive
before the Telstra account he borrows money to pay, well, he
says one visit to the family man's abode is enough to be a trashy
comedy except the family man doesn't get the joke two hours
after swallowing mogodon on top of tuna casserole crumbed
with processed cheese sliding back up his throat to enter his mouth
repeatedly closed with another smoke. He says it helps
him think about family life that thrives without the latest leaflets
stuffed in the letterbox after the last official government visits
concerning Child Welfare For The Maternally Deprived, Centrelink
Will Help You Repay Your Debt, Domestic Violence Hot Line
For Emergency Advice, and, If You Don't Take Your Medication
Mental Illness May Fill Your House With Unbelievable Lies.
