CLARK BUCKO

Take it to the Mat

Barely lit and soft-edged

many-fingered pet—

you will be mine.

I’m hung.

Let me name you, pin you down.

You’re so pale, let me

put my mouth on you.

Everything is hinging,

thinking of the big things.

Three hours of inflatable madness,

the pube in the throat of the week.

Can we wrestle?

Let’s work this out.

Get in here.

I use these words

romantically often.

[Carnival ramps up I’m ready]

Carnival ramps up I’m ready

to hose down the sandiest dry spell

and crack the oyster of falling in love again.

Another damned half moon slid my coat

open then you started showing up in my bed

every week. I’d felt like a nun.

Still bless me anyway; I want more life.

Ishmael, the Simp

No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world

Do I dare sleep aside this tall harpooner?

From what vile hole has he come

below the throbbing and heaving sea?

His body is something I’d like to describe for you

This is a thing which carries more of true terror

Does shit disgust us by

evoking the primal fear of death

or is shit just gross?

Or is shit just one more thing we can’t control,

hopeless tasks like finding a single creature in

this whole wide world, whale or whaleman

To consume and be consumed

Bulging through the oysters

Full tilt rushing headlong and tossed?

The heart interferes with the translation

and I intend to feel it all

*a previous version of this poem appeared in Antigravity Magazine

Clark Bucko is a 43-year-old who lives and writes in New Orleans, Louisiana. Their work has appeared in Poor Claudia, The Portland Review, Haggard and Halloo, Antigravity Magazine and elsewhere. Clark is also part of the Tilted House editorial team.