Surgeons of Little Faith
They opened her up,
found the aorta arching towards sky,
the spleen holding a reservoir
of bad blood,
the fractured bones as evidence
of God’s Old Testament anger.
They closed her up, shut off
all machines & alarms.
They went home to their silent wives
fingers scarred from years
of blind needlepoint.
Saints and Whores
I surrender myself, grist for the mill,
to the aging flesh priestess of 6th Avenue.
She works her hands through layers of skin,
each one more conscious than the last.
Make me stiff and hard and young, I say.
I climax blind like the last lunar eclipse.
And in that one wrinkle of time,
we two are eternal, in another life
we could have been lovers savoring
pomegranate seeds under transplanted
Buddha coconuts and Foxglove trees
Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey. He has been published in Your Impossible Voice, Night Train, Toad, Matchbox and elsewhere. His latest ebook, Father Dunne’s School for Wayward Boys, is available on amazon.com. He blogs at upatberggasse19.