The Obvious
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Pipes who does my speaking
does not appreciate a name.
But he speaks with spillage and burn.
Each of his porous teeth unscrews.

The advice he follows is to salt
his tongue and his gums.
He so licks the earth
that a crater forms

with rain at its bottom so thin
it cannot be swallowed.
Oxygen has a thicker cloy
and more animals in it

eating and swimming in tiny skins.
The air has more of an animal smell.
Pipes who speaks for me
destroys his favorite plastic plate;

he sets his index cards aside
and opens his mouth and sleeps,
and feels as though he has never been
hungry, or in need of water, or sleep.

 

From The Obvious by Bradley Paul

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