February/March 2005




The Dolphin
by
Phillip Overby

My soda tasted like a furnace.
I hear a man in a corn field say "I like candy" and I turn to look and he's not there 
instead there's this huge pacifier wiggling back and forth,
the trunk rooted into the ground. 
There's a dog trapped inside the nipple with a chew toy. 
Black liquid pumps into the nipple from the ground, a satellite falls,
some cows cross in front of my car, then I'm on top of the car choking on something cold.
 
There's a see-saw contest,
I won third place.
A motorcycle gang twists up the monkey bars and starts hammering the jungle gym. 
A new place opens in my heart, 
it's brown. 
There was a dolphin skeleton in the sand box. 
"I know who put it there," I told an old woman. 
The dolphin's eyes grew back. 
My glue was cold. 
I went home and the milkman cancelled his legs. 
The world wore gas masks,
had sex with gas masks,
went to work with gas masks. 
Babies came out of the womb wearing gas masks, 
red coats too 
that look spray-painted. 
Someone tells me watch out for glass cigarettes and furry condoms. 
I wave my fist and all the cats have jackhammer hands. 
I steady my grip on my soda.


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