| Charles Musser |
Steelhead Salmonread by charles musser Through glacial waves it drifts into a shore-pool, becalmed of surging combers. Pendant in its buoyancy, it flips into a barrel-roll to graze on alewife. Flecks of sand, risen on the ebb and flow, spark like mica in a halo from behind, and with its pearl belly, buffs the under-feathers of the air, hovers untouchable and sleek with fat, waits for the moon to swing 'round. L'Enfant Mardi Gras
read by darian She puts on a smile, glides in glow-glass up the street, her and the new sky, cool like classic Coca-Cola; she's gotta swim, but rain done gone, gotta drop the souvenirs, the fake French-tourist accent, and save her trim de crème for later in the shadows. Her blood is chicken fat in an oil drum, spun bubble gum smack over sinewy muscle, and shot like a dazzle of thorns through the heart; keeps her knees apart, her powder-burn fingers curious and nimble. She's thumbin' it and crawlin' into a Cadillac crankin' Mariachi headed to N'Awlins with a two-tone, half-blind Aztec. They drivin' wild on the whiff of an opium riff, on a knuckle-glide down the keys and up Bourbon Street, garbled and chimera-dragged like the last crack-candy fop in Lose-y-Anna. She's bettin' on the logarithm of a sweat-swung ass, of pink flamingo eyes and Camel Lights. It's lack of water, it's lack of shelter it's the high chaparral of a polyester-struttin' preacher man's Sundance and Lordy, it's her omen-psalm of love.  |