Locust taxes

Love Letter from a Sunny Place

Dylan Thomas rakes his yard and

fashions a breast out of brown leaves.

Brown is an accurate shade of his mother’s

tit after she nursed for him for three years.

He swears there is a collection of teeth there in the leaves

grown after his infancy bribe to eat the good earth

all day, to give innocence back to

whoever mistakenly gave him the

vowels of their body. To eat meat straight

from the ribs is good, he thinks, and will win

him his place in hell. He sold his mother

to God and angels everywhere.

For the promise of a big steak, he pursed his lips

and sucked the white, dovish wings out of the sky

and said, here is something in return, I think.

I’ve had the face a baby my whole life,

which is too long. Savor these bright cheeks

and pug nose for your holiday things. I’ll stick my

lips in the punch bowl, right in.

Dylan is digging in the cold again

and doesn’t know why. To be the bones

of a rabid dog who, in turn, bit his owner

would be great, finally done with panting,

howling at wood smoke, burying hope and music and weather

with other things not meant for the animal world.

Bargaining is a funny death, he reckons,

if death means romancing oneself in a Motel 6,

somewhere warm and sunny like Arizona,

beating the thin wall a few times before

a voice answers back:

There’s a fierce dog tugging your trousers, dear Dylan.

Goodness darling! the holes in your brain must be as big as fists.