My Homunculus

I ached at

     Twenty-two.

Inverted porcupine, mind like stew

I need a beaker, a

     Beaker filled with goo to create

My homunculus so

I thought: this van will do.

This van, not that van

That van is haunted by the driveway

     Where we fell where I fell,

By the swinging scalp of the enemy,

The pseudo-steel ellipse peppered

     With what is left of my

     Family tree

Haunted by the three

Seats that remain unhinged

     The twinge of the act of the entrance

“Tell me you want it” I should have

     let you freeze in the parking lot

This

Beaker is smeared and cloudy but

     It will do.

And “do” it did, but

The job was done in a forest green

Shoebox more often

     Than not

I’d imagine how light footed we

would be;

     I, him,

     He, me,

Vicariously.

I would hear the crinkle and sniff up

my snot and

     Concoct who I would run from tonight.

Buried boyfriend?

     Dear maman?

I had the bloody drum but I was

Atlas and it fit snugly and writhes

Uncomfortably on my shoulders

When was I assigned this role?

That is why you will bear a hole,

My homunculus, you will brave the

Sloping bowl of rock bottom for I

     Cannot

A hole where that hummingbird knot

     would cry.

A handful and I slip them into

Pockets and plastics but the boot

     snaps two and then there

Was you.

She struggled with a can of tea I

Wasn’t allowed to watch her wrestle

     Herself free from her leash we

Watched videos in the beaker we

spoke of sorrow with upturned lips

And flowers blooming from our

crotches we were heavy tongued we

     Was not me.

It was you, my homunculus.

There were so many test tubes the

black sleek eel that collected

pebbles of rain I have a picture of

that night of my fleshy palm

upturned as it became your fleshy

     palm upturned

Your cornucopia beneath the dome

light do not think that I use you

We diffuse the tangled testimonies and

     embark across the concrete floor.

Don’t forget to lock the door.

Snow White V-sweeties and we

glided through the circuit of the local

      mall

I’ve always wondered if when viewed

from a searching helicopter it is cut

like a swastika I feel like it is so it

     must be so

There is no

Manifest Destiny no Sears Tower

     seraphim no Xeroxed “X”

So you retreat and she slides herself

Into the viscous beaker and you join

her in the passenger seat.

     My homunculus.

I think your struts are going out.

Do not think I use you I miss you

     like I used to miss ill-fitting friends

I take the bends and run the stop

signs when I sprint down corridors

     with the hourglass reversed

I’ve seen on green “LAFAYETTE” and

I ride the wave of unpaved

     potholes

But I am not well-acquainted with

     Luck

     She fled in the bed of a pickup truck

She fled in the beaker, once alone

The second time with a mist of arms

     and stubble in my seat.

In your seat, my homunculus

What will you do? I used to sneak

     them as I looked through.

To store them in corners of frames

     Beneath paper and rubble.

How greedy I was to awaken you.

Half-lidded, wise,

My blithe eye fails to recognize

     The black-tipped stake,

Another cell to die. That’s all it would

     Take.

The pennies in the furnace,

Tax return to burn, for who?

Excuse, excuse,

To fend off the color blue.

Not that van, that van is plagued by

the driveway where I felt the ventricle swell.

That van looks, smells, sounds

     like hell.

That beaker slimed in midnight sky 

Like an oil spill. I filled it up with

     numbered tickets for reconciliation.

Triple digit.  The Father eyes his

wristwatch.

I swish and swill

And you yawn and peel the barbed

     wire, feel the barbed

     wire rebuke

You stare into the Goodwill mirror

     But, despite typhoons of bile,

     Do not puke.

-BENJAMIN SMITH