Aspirin/

by Jesse S. Mitchell

The voices, breathless, ask me through the parts in
The walls and pulled down hair, like beaded curtains,
Cyclones, making your home there…
The voices beseech me, breathless,
Have you ever been before in this jungle?
Here they speak in tongues,
Here is table land, flat earth, circular land,
Where Armageddon has begun, already begun…
Take up the serpents lad,
This is the jungle land, the garden land…
Gentle pandemonium
The way the music boils through the streets,
Eye-peeled lilting rhythm, one note, two note, harmoniums,
The garden land
Eden land,
Beulah land.

I like the way this aspirin thins the blood. I like the feeling. The pulling out the plug. The release of pressure. The relentless buzz of the red cells rushing through the veins…these things carry oxygen…the veins tight, tubes contracting, dark spots appearing, closing in, fallopian.

Weeds standing outside the window, empty…
I sit alone, all alone, pulled out Shakespearian volumes
From the wall,
Looking into the blank place on the bookshelf,
The dirty outlines of negative space,
Patagonian devils lined up like
Pampas grass swaying in the wind
Praying arms like supplicants
Bowing low to some flat headed
Pagan god, old blooded and hooved
Blind, dirty and hooded.

This is where the crazy men come to die, yes. This is where the crazy men all come to die, woo hoo. We are sinners, we two. We are sinners, me and you. The jungle land. Eden land. Heaven heaven, promised land.