The Spinal Tap

Within the lungs’ core, the last gasp

Is plucked; the eyeballs’ frenzied stare,

The minute, fevered breath that stains

The aroma of an otherwise piquant

Soup, is monument of trauma
While the thickening froth furthers its death

This fly

Is me in a day of lethargy.

Shoot to the black, this mind

Is free but wanting—serve

And feed my narcissism whose source
Of fancy fathers my guilt:

I find the Muse fugitive

And absent when the moon is such—

Stagnant thoughts lump my brain
While the soup mocks the insect’s final dance

This fly
Is me in a day of lethargy.

(Published in the PEN & INK, 1999)