MK Brake

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.