Tourism
In the barn, mushrooms feast
A cow with black eyes watches me
chew through a low window
where I eat her brother, her cousin,
her friend, a body of Christ,
a sacrificial lamb, a child of sex
and grass and volcanic earth.
The bench is beveled spruce,
the beer is ice cold. My fingerprints
bloom where I touch dead bodies.
In the barn, mushrooms feast
on grease the color of groundwater,
warmer than blood, smells of sulfur
death in the fields. The sign here
requires naked splaying. I’m a person
that undresses when asked.
Others are not so compliant.
Why is it always the Americans?
In our pockets we hide false promises.
©️ Trapper Markelz 2022
If you enjoyed reading this poem, please consider: