Alabaster Joe has a Bullet with Your Name on It
BY NICK NARBUTAS
She is something like a bottle of Mississippi Mud.
Break her against the wall and she leaves behind
a rain splatter taped to the back of something upright.
Her hands are hammers, her smile a scythe.
You could build her out of bricks, you could paint her with mortar.
You drunkfucked her like someone in Tucson was dying.
You drunkfucked her like—goddamn, have you ever
seen such a gunpowdered nose?—fucked her like
the hurricane was coming and the sirens were sounding
like a fleet of motorcycle engines and the two of you
were locked in a dark room with nothing but a bare
mattress in the middle of the floor.
The walls weren’t going to hold the wind out.
And you drunkfucked her through a dawn
the color of dried blood on dirty laundry.
She said, “I’m some sort of nun.
I look real good in black.”
She said, “You must be a preacher
I can hear my every sin
diving off your tongue.”
Her phone was set a-ringing so you threw it at the wall.
It broke just like the bottle, left behind a scar shaped
like a liquid asterisk. You apologized, but you did not repent.
You drunkfucked with a gallon of gasoline in your chest.
You dared her to strike matches on your skin, saying,
“Make me a candle, baby. I’m all wax.”
She knew you were lying, but she struck the match anyway.
She is something like a bottle of Mississippi Mud.
Break her against the wall and she leaves behind
a rain splatter taped to the back of something upright.
Her hands are hammers, her smile a scythe.
You could build her out of bricks, you could paint her with mortar.
You drunkfucked her like someone in Tucson was dying.
You drunkfucked her like—goddamn, have you ever
seen such a gunpowdered nose?—fucked her like
the hurricane was coming and the sirens were sounding
like a fleet of motorcycle engines and the two of you
were locked in a dark room with nothing but a bare
mattress in the middle of the floor.
The walls weren’t going to hold the wind out.
And you drunkfucked her through a dawn
the color of dried blood on dirty laundry.
She said, “I’m some sort of nun.
I look real good in black.”
She said, “You must be a preacher
I can hear my every sin
diving off your tongue.”
Her phone was set a-ringing so you threw it at the wall.
It broke just like the bottle, left behind a scar shaped
like a liquid asterisk. You apologized, but you did not repent.
You drunkfucked with a gallon of gasoline in your chest.
You dared her to strike matches on your skin, saying,
“Make me a candle, baby. I’m all wax.”
She knew you were lying, but she struck the match anyway.
Nick Narbutas, originally from San Francisco, is an undergraduate poetry student at Columbia College Chicago. His only other publication is in Mad Licks, a zine put out by Columbia’s Silver Tongue reading series. He plans to graduate in the spring of 2012 and hopes to pursue an MFA immediately after.