Artist: Illegal Boyfriend
Title: 15 Envelopes
Release #: MIF197
Release Date: May 21, 2011
Format
: Printed poem in painted envelopes

How to Finish Her Off

If your life has become a terrible bone
or just fangs at the end of a spine
white as bone, dry & dull
& dead as a drawer full of knives.

If you’ve vague space before death
in which you twitch & use pain
to scratch her name with your nails
in dust, while the cock with one claw

spells it again while his brain lies limp
on the butchering block. If the snake
scribes her ehsss over again & again
while the gardener wipes the ax on his boot.

If you obsess for the worm
that wiggled in dread too long
after getting halved by your
grandpap’s knife and now

you’re just nerves that writhe like bait
you were slapped for dumping out of his boat.
If Joy’s a nibble of meat
then abruptly a jolt

—your tongue torn—ripped—
as if metal ate into your throat,
then say it again, what it is, her name,
use pliers to pull out that hook—