weight of the dimmed sun
the tongue of someone
who hasn’t loved before
the paddle of it
the glass of it in your mouth
the sky diving simulator of it
all full of nylon jumpsuit smiling
bodies giving you
the thumbs up
the problem of measuring
the proportion of bite
in a mouth numb
after the filling
the unexpected
reconstruction of it later
I reassure my dentist it’s fine
although I can’t feel anything
but weight of the dimmed sun
red, smoked humidity
& the trap of living
in a rain forest
with no rain
& I keep eating consecutively
more shriveled mushrooms
in my newly vegetarian diet
it was too much
the chihuahua in the street
its owner wailing, everyone
pouring their eyes & tongues
into the street after it
tasting the sorrow
licking it from the pavement
its salty presence
enough to remind us
of violent men on the waterfront
today, the ones in homemade
uniforms & the ones
in factory made uniforms & us
the beaten
in the uniform
of clotted-tongued thirst
bearing witness to a woman’s
life of tragedy
unspooling in
loss of stolen futon mattress
frame or sunrise
or faithful
dark brown companion
growing smaller in the street
under the tire
I’ve kissed in falsehood before
taken those I do
not love to rose gardens
I am an expert
it tastes like gas on the tongue
to have teeth rebuilt
I’m open now
push my tongue to the side
& come in
Pigs
The goal of psychoanalysis is to help us remove ribs from pigs
& other four legged beasts keeping in mind the line in the show
with the character who once gave an equation of suffering greater
than death equals the tenderest meat. The goal of psychoanalysis
is to help us understand human behavior as a sacrament
of the process of becoming human is unfortunately riddled
with the holes of becoming human of the unknown stuttering
brother of Moses & the angels hear my cry. The goal of psycho-
analysis is to snip the frenulum of blue of a nightstick the sky blue
of a bleeding mouth the blue of the underside of a thrown brick
the blue of wet pavement all of the blue present when the test
comes back positive & now your cells have a blue of their own
a squashed blue the sort of blue that looks you steadily
in the eye as it unbuckles its belt. The goal of psychoanalysis
is the same as the word goal if the word goal is an only way
to correct action.
Amie Zimmerman lives in Portland, Oregon. Her work has been included, or is forthcoming, in Sixth Finch, DIAGRAM, Salt Hill, Heavy Feather Review, New South, and Bone Bouquet, among others. She has two chapbooks, Oyster (REALITY BEACH) and Compliance (Essay Press), and is events coordinator for YesYes Books. She can be found at www.amiezimmerman.site.