Bloodsucker bugs in the side room
w/ a bumblebee puppet wasps and no batteries
a stuffed rabbit on skates.
I just breathed a knife the greenhouse effect
Mrs. Butterworth bottles lining the sills.
The girl smiles from the side
of the bottle of dye
the pain of lost time
and I wish I’d blonde in the schoolyard at night
a paper plate taped to my face.
Summer means nothing slimy woods meta-noir
cigarettes in the paw-paws
and at dawn the blonde ingénue crawling into the bedroom.
She eats sixteen cupcakes takes photos in barely-
there cotton panties in your mother’s drawers
rooting for bras feels like master-suite royalty
tracing the tropics on your globe with her lipstick.
My orange ombré lips dominate decimate
white-hot food for the boys droopy eyes between sizes.
In the morning it mists. I take his temperature
w/ the plastic thermometer in the play doctor’s case
warn him of bare armpits
too much sun in the fun.
I curtsy long. I drink rum in the dollhouse
where the kitchen lights up.
I throw myself into the lake
turn the barbecue into a wake
because what else can you do when the phone doesn’t ring?