As if I’ve never seen you smile at my
friends right in front of my face, which I
straightened with all my strength.
As if I weren’t receiving daily phone calls
from my future self warning me of potholes
that I step in anyway because how do I know
my future self isn’t fucking with me?
I know myself, and it’s the kind of thing
I’d do. As if I could be king and you
could be queen, which David Bowie promised
but did he mean you and me?
Who’s been calling your cell, verse one.
Your hand on my best friend’s knee,
come on and admit it, verse two.
As if I say all this to you and you say
as if. As if I was a werewolf but now
I’m Scott again, and I say I’m sorry
I about bit your head off back there.
As if I could become your pet parrot and call
your new boyfriend Cracker, his penis peanut.
As if my heart darkened and you opened
the window blinds to make a sunlight square
to soak it in. As if you would ever leave me
for Richard Dawson. He kisses every female
Family Feud contestant. When I close my eyes
all I see are fruit flies. When they close their eyes
all they see is garbage. The garbage truck comes
with screeching brakes while they’re sleeping
and they wake bereft. Buzzing and banging heads
against screen doors. Like me after the inevitable
bull comes charging at me. After you’ve left.

–Tom C. Hunley,
Scotch Tape World
Accents Publishing

I’m hungry, I told the frozen pizza,
and to the windstorm I said,
You’re from Chicago? My friend
moved there to avoid herself, which
I can understand, though mostly I’m
speeding towards myself
hoping only to avoid a collision.
I have felt like a furniture sale where
everything must go, you know, before
the arson, and also like the droopy flower
that ruined the whole arrangement
and made the bride cry. I’ve seen pigeons
staggering in shadows cast by pine trees,
and I’ve seen drunks ambulating
towards bathrooms in taverns pitch black
except for the lamps above pool tables.
I try to hang on as long as I can,
like the icicles hanging onto office awnings
above the heads of smokers. I’ve felt at times
like a balloon running out of helium, a car
running out of gas, a pizza box emptied of all
but the crusts. And now, early in my
forty-second February, I feel like
a snowman, as if tomorrow I’ll be nothing
but a carrot, a pipe, and ashes where two
charcoal eyes sat before somebody squirted them
with lighter fuel and struck a match.

–Tom C. Hunley,
Scotch Tape World
Accents Publishing

When the light strikes your face
at just the right angle, I can almost
see our future, all bright
and shiny in your eyes
is something I heard Mike say
five times in the same evening
to different women with the same
results, is the first verse of a song
I heard on my car stereo
in a dream I was having about
a road trip past the cornfields
of Indiana. I don’t know
anyone named Mike, but I hope
he finally made it, found happiness,
grew into his body, which was clumsy
and slow like a John Deere tractor
bringing traffic to a grinding halt
is the beginning of a story I never
finished reading. Do you believe
there are angels whose whole job
is to salvage all the fragments,
all our half-finished efforts?
Where was I? Oh right, Indiana.
It swallowed me up because I said
I’ll be damned before I move to Kentucky
is something I heard a preacher say
while he lassoed a snake above his head.
Something I ate had poisoned me.
I was starting to feel it. My stomach
testified, and a perfumed woman in
a large straw hat shouted Amen.

–Tom C. Hunley,
Scotch Tape World
Accents Publishing