Lauren Dimmer is an undergraduate at Florida State University doing her Honors Thesis in poetry.
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Cannibalizing Is Just Resource Management
So I told him laughing that I’m calling it testerical from now on
the boy who had Freudian dreams of being black in Zambia because
Zambia is just where you go I guess and let’s talk about trailer trash
a little longer and I can tell the story of my-father-who-eats-road-kill
and laugh instead of crying because really, my father, who eats
things. Metal pieces and broken rubber and scraped with a six-inch
knife from pavement and the boy who went to Zambia is asking, well,
Are these indiscriminant things or what, are we talking armadillo here
as though I would look through my father’s sad Nissan and peel
his saran wrap back from pieces of ashes of soot of road-tops and ask.
My father who carries the six-inch hunting knife and the fat of the
land liquefied in his trunk and he shook me once so hard I saw stars
and he showed me where the stars are and he saw stars taking opiates
and ruining our lives and that is why I lived in a double-wide and
all I can do is say what is wrong with trailer trash what is wrong with
trailers what is wrong with armadillo what is wrong with the testes
and the black people what is wrong with god what is wrong with
using what you have for the moment and peeling back the cocoon
of your chin and rattling your teeth against my palm and breaking
down your joints and sucking on fingertips and what is wrong with
eating the marrow and what is wrong with wanting to be human.
the boy who had Freudian dreams of being black in Zambia because
Zambia is just where you go I guess and let’s talk about trailer trash
a little longer and I can tell the story of my-father-who-eats-road-kill
and laugh instead of crying because really, my father, who eats
things. Metal pieces and broken rubber and scraped with a six-inch
knife from pavement and the boy who went to Zambia is asking, well,
Are these indiscriminant things or what, are we talking armadillo here
as though I would look through my father’s sad Nissan and peel
his saran wrap back from pieces of ashes of soot of road-tops and ask.
My father who carries the six-inch hunting knife and the fat of the
land liquefied in his trunk and he shook me once so hard I saw stars
and he showed me where the stars are and he saw stars taking opiates
and ruining our lives and that is why I lived in a double-wide and
all I can do is say what is wrong with trailer trash what is wrong with
trailers what is wrong with armadillo what is wrong with the testes
and the black people what is wrong with god what is wrong with
using what you have for the moment and peeling back the cocoon
of your chin and rattling your teeth against my palm and breaking
down your joints and sucking on fingertips and what is wrong with
eating the marrow and what is wrong with wanting to be human.