You mumble,
your head burps nonsense,
words a river of babble-rousing slippitude.
Your foot is sucked into your mucky mouth.
Roughly hewn orange trees
produce fleshy furniture
for unforgettable chatter
that exists only in your shower along with the mildew
creeping up like kudzu.
Notes are stuffed into your pockets
along with old lottery tickets
sour ball wrappers
and the stink of omnipresent failure.
Now seated at the sweet wood table
you are certain the Merlot just compared you to a
poorly rendered copy of a Van Gogh self-portrait.
The Pinot scoffed and muttered you should be so lucky.
Dressed in a suit of tightly woven flies
your host glimmers in sync
to post disco Social Distortion’s
‘I walk the line.’
Kohlrabi is served as an appetizer
it is slavered with slivered almonds
floating in a Thai chili paste.
The server is robed in fine French cheeses
you are encouraged to grab the fussy pussy
Again your phalanges knot your tongue
while life slips ahead where
you can see your present careening
off the road into the river
that runs through Lilliwap.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This poem was selected from entries submitted to our Creative Challenge Series #22: First Sentences, which required that the first sentence in the text must be used as given.
