What I Said to the Man Living in My Bedroom Closet
Derek Annis
Somebody pulled
the cork from the bung
and emptied this barrel
of mayonnaise.
If you stick your finger
through the hole you’ll find
your finger in the barrel.
What were you expecting?
What were you extracting
from that pile of beaks
just now? What were we
drinking from this red
carpet? Don’t
tell me I told you
there would be a rope
in this room. I won’t be held
accountable. I won’t be held.
I’ve eaten my last sandwich
and I’m ready for an apple
to swoop down from the heavens
and carry me far away
to the basement of titanium
babies. I would trade
my only mouth for a paper
bag of new mouths.
I would replace my liver
with a water-cooled
copper coil. If I could live
for a thousand years
I wouldn’t.
On Our Way to the Festival of Worms
Derek Annis
This red apple symbolizes
a green apple emblematic
of a disembodied wing. Don’t ask
or puddle across the floor
like fingers over a wet tongue.
The symbol is a winged apple,
and no one remembers the town
we grew up in. Here’s a flower,
it petals out the window
where you can see
the important question: What do they do
with pickled pigs after
harvesting their feet?
Harvesting their feet, the pickled
pigs apple fiercely
at moon-hour in the alley between
the hollowed-out rat
and the writhing mass of meat.
A disembodied finger asks
a wet question of the floor,
the window, and the dog puddle
sideways on Wednesday;
look at him go. Go look at him.
Floor petals trunk a question.
Apples: the source, seed, stem,
flesh and tongue. Amen.
about the writer
Derek Annis is the author of Neighborhood of Gray Houses, which will be released by Lost Horse Press in March, 2020. Derek lives in Spokane, Washington, and holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University. Their poems have appeared in The Account, Colorado Review, Epiphany, The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review Online, Spillway, Third Coast, and many other journals.