CALL IT BY ITS NAME

c 2021 Tristan Winter

Does your town smell

     like a broken nose

Are the craftsmen in shacks too

     stupid to know how to peel bananas

Do your neighbors spit when they talk

     to holes called buddy

Do your cops wear pants

     for uniform jackets

Do your haunting two thoughts

     shoot from mythical toasters

Are your aluminum hours

     reckoned in suicides

Does your wife have one enticing

     leg and tattooed eyes

On a flat scab face weeping

     hold on son this is just starting

Did this place fall upon you

     like a lordly evacuation

Churches on every corner stuck

     in it like creamed corn

Welcome signs everywhere

     and priests splayed over

Graves intoning truths eternal:

     garbage in garbage out

Did you lose money

     again today or was it

Last month or was it a rock

     that said you are here