Radio

My voice on the radio

These grainy bits of last days

Blend together-

A fine and ashy sand,

Made of the worn down smiles

Of the worn out.

My voice on the radio

I’ve forgotten yours,

Once so sweet to me,

Now a sort of uneasy

After-questionable-sushi feeling.

I’m rubbing off my eye makeup

Slowly into the night—

The effect, a raccoon-eyed sex goddess

In a man’s button down flannel—

Listening to my own voice tremble and falter

Like a drunkard on steps

Haphazard on these beautiful English words

Of my own choosing,

Listening to my own voice crack and

Lose rhythm and breath

With the shimmer of a cracked and dusty diamond.

I’ve never wanted a cigarette worse,

But it’s a good night for denied gratification.

The trucks speed by, full of groceries

For the rich,

The drivers, the poor

The immigrants and post-op transsexuals

The students and the East London husbands

Who beat their wives and steal the odd television,

Yawning their ascent into morning.

An uneasy and gray morning,

In a snowless December,

Suddenly comes

My voice on the radio

Spilling out my darkest secrets.

Rolling billowing waves of my emotional

Entrails

Rushing over the drivers of the grocery trucks,

Catching in egg crates and milk cartons,

And turning sour fruit ripe.