I was gone long before I left. You know,
not even a word to my best neighbor,
so our scumlord couldn’t sneak afterglow
into our drinking water—make us sure
he grew suddenly human—Frenzied like
Pythia babbling oracles on Mount
Parnassus, we’d claim him a god and trike
behind his pied-piper ass, his pale count-
dracula slur, wade into steaming Styx
till our warped mouths and flat nostrils sucked mud.
I’ll bet that sneaky cur curls eel-like, licks
his own butt just to taste pimples and blood
as he lies in damp, dark basements, pleasing
his black heart with thick drooling and wheezing.
Roger Armbrust
August 3, 2009
