You said I was your burning bush but here I am,
burglarized and blindfolded. When you said “at least
we can see condors on cable TV,” I was somewhat
comforted. Look at that poor beetle, crushed on a
dare — another instance of our domestic cruelty. If animals
begin to dream of revenge it will end us. Your cuff links
are embellished with my eyeteeth. Every hour is our eleventh
since the mortgage burst. This futuristic fun house on the cul-de-sac
is wired like a factory. There’s a room for every electric fetish.
That those charms you hung from the gables failed is no surprise.
You always gift wrap empty boxes and guard trinkets no one
wants — a glassy-eyed groom generalizing about girth. The way
I found you is horrifying: sitting on the town square’s howitzer,
harpoon in one hand, hymnal in the other. You’re infirm. That
interdepartmental memo agrees. What kind of person spends
hours carving images of the apocalypse out of ice?
There’s the instant of judgment melting in the driveway.

Previously published in Pudding Magazine, Issue #56.

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Nathan Moore has been published at elimae, Quarrtsiluni, Menacing Hedge, Fleeting Magazine and others. He was the winner of the 2009 William Redding Memorial Contest. Nathan’s “Exegesis” and “Comments on a Dissertation” are in Reprint.

Object(s) to bring back to life: “I wish I could bring back my vestigial tail and an old-fashioned Christmas that would include drunkenness, cross dressing, and general misrule.”