The Taxidermist’s House
Mansion made of
gelatinous eyes
Won’t you come
be my fancy house?
Iris duplex
is the right wing
broken
sheet stiff yellow
once
cream like underbelly
of loving you sick
&&&
Had to shellac ! can’t resist shine of
lacquered marrow when I put place settings atop it here for dinner your mom-and-dad-bones
hewn to woodgrain
Pass me the ashtray
jaw
molars reach out
cinder holding cell
swallows vice remnant
small scraps of citrus
rind
Your sister Polly under the lemon tree
They grow so sour!
Pop entire fruit into mouth
feel against my teeth the way Polly’s teeth
felt against my teeth
Seeds as big as toes!
&&&
House is peopled
is a boarding house
is seeing you everywhere
I go like
blackberry jam
seeping thick and fibrous
through floorboards and crags
Fledgling wrinkle
springspread from my jam-
crusted eyeblackeyed
picnicking love fruit on the
unswept floor
breakfast for dinner in
checkered skin
biscuits cheese fingersandwiches Polly
zested this tart
hungry at sound of intestine split sharp in sausage
&&&
You know my grandfather was a poacher was a decorator, room full up dead
summer house, vacation—no summer i don’t want to inside the frozen faces cold in here
without my sweater illegal killing of what did that lion
do to you? coarse and contaminated, contagious in all the wrong places
mind fragility mine and foster the sickness looming my grandfather sick, my grandfather
the table had a bench made of Elephant sat on it while he
stroked
**
Taxidermy for Dummies
1. Find Curdling babe (know fault lines)
2. (In) all my mouths it quaint
(In) cinnamon limitless
gun
of us filled with poison of us
::In, in, girl— In ! to::
3. Jitter cerebellum (unbreast this bitch)(nightly)
+ stew/disengage
a) limpness of boy livers
b) transubstantiation
c) September
4. Vaccinate hopetooth vampyr
5. What living for death brought (but it was WHITE hot !)
6. Incantation: a Word/Nymphish/You that’s two:
“JACKRABBIT”brew
Bind the giant thumps that tender skulls may never
your appleless
that/whitch
-for once offered milk
-for praise in the dark
7. Bloom the Blood-On
Mosquito spot Inchoate
Cramp
8. Pry cystic Why from my blasfemur
9. Crane back until neck inserts itself your sewer &surfaces in the bobbing
Wake This Water Dirge ! You manhole saint :
10. Sing ( Oh HO- SANNA ) the
ipecac
virgin
away
&fill the abscess
in(Hello! I’m In Your Tooth)
falsely
forceful
expulsion
**
The Taxidermied Chorus
JACKAL: Anubis molest halogenseam off cock
IBIS:Sow
frightforms Sight Wins Converts !
Store Eyes in Birch ! !
CAT: This the sun-crossed
blood-crossed
lore told lover—
RAM: How to outlive abrupt
drug /fall coddled, hotter :
ALL: Tableau who prays
pain-lore
demands
CAT: Fell canker sore & Fang snare moan
IBIS: &Stay the fettered clown seeds
ALL: for (proper/fragile) Dark Shorn Stardom births liar
pandering
JACKAL: Freeze stepped-on eye acid &wrangle hosts
CAT: when bending light refraction
ebb fright-mirrors
kill savior sage
IBIS: Then
Opal
Socket
Pardons
RAM: Shallow out pyramid or stonehenge donor/ lore-refrain behest (a lie):
CAT: Light Forgives!
IBIS: —LIED LIGHT!—belied all the ways doves creaming
ALL: Jut Temporality – Lore – Scare inside
RAM: ReQueen what sought her
sty
CAT: Creep tits
hard-on/ off last
ALL: All Handled Queer Fest
Sundering Gut Choke—
All His Drugs the Pretty Sprite Sank
JACKAL: Hollowedhusk linger :
The Pet Predilection
RAM: (Grinding Lye Lye Lye)
CAT: as thimble
nimbly
de/constructs
paternal
IBIS: antibacterialize fetid worth
ALL: /WOULD’VE CALLED BUT GLUE TOOTH my heart IS a feather
these the scales that weigh me Just
a spread-ass adolescent
**
BB ’ s
BB
! ¡ CUT-THE-
COLIC ! ¡
DADDY SPIRES ALMOND CAKES
CURBS PINCER @BELLYBUTTON
BUT I COME 2
K I SS YO U !
!! !*!
(+ keep my sugarmeat)
NOW WE KNOW
WHO’S AFRAID OF WHO’S
STUBBLE
: YOU CAN MAKE A LOT OF
MONEY ;)
THAT WAY *
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
**PURPLE (IN THE DEATH DEN) AGAINST THE
LYING WHITE
=
***“BEST IF USED BY”
DATE:
********B*I*R*T*H*******
**
M.K. BRAKE likes parties and poetry. She is primarily a projective verse poet—dabbling with form makes her dance dance. Her work can be found in Fruita Pulp, Arsenic Lobster, Smoking Glue Gun and others. She currently teaches Poetry at Louisiana State University.