congratulations on the new mini-van, hughes

I’m glad we didn’t meet then, when
alone in my 3rd floor efficiency off Magazine
I would trap southern roaches with an upturned cup
slide under a piece of junk mail to cover the mouth
and off to the freezer they'd go
until the next day, or three, depending on when I came to
and damn if I wasn’t surprised going for ice.

Its funny now,
but imagine I make you laugh
hell, you’re in New Orleans.
imagine you’ve said fuck it,
you don’t know that I’ve only just moved here
(seasoned and pickled are similar looks)  and we’re on the streetcar back to my place
you haven’t been this drunk in so long and hand to God
you almost never touch the other stuff.
and even if the unbearable lightness should cause your clothes to float away,
nobody's gonna mistake you for a lamb

My process was to take the creatures out of the freezer,
suspended, comatose, or dead
i never knew
and pose them in tiny chairs,
on paperclip bicycles. Skateboards.
Miniature tables laden with little plates of food,
I would fix hats on their alien heads and place
little slivers of  the Times Picayune
in their  prothoracic legs

imagine shushing your inner bitch as we climb the stairs
past Fury, guarding her doorway
challenging quaint definitions of gender
cursing the curves of your bountiful ass.
here we are,
you, partaking of a little vacation strange,
enter this stale smelling cell,
this coop where I stoop to deposit my insides into the river

It’s funny to think of dozens of these tableaux,
posed roaches caught mid step, twirling
night-night buddy wearing pajamas and a cap,
carrying a candle.
eating, going to bed, lifting weights, staying informed,
the roaches were leading the life that we would eventually establish
because you were not there to see them

now that my roaches are dispatched
with extreme prejudice,
our freezer is stocked with
more civilized
frozen animals.

you're not horrified that
I seem a little strange