Domestic Defense

Conversations
of how to defend
front porches
with strategic
grenade patterns
continue after
the frizzy haired
gypsy, limp
hand-rolled
cigarette hanging
from her blue lips,
fails to convince
that the medicinal
herbs she has piled
on a wicker platter will
ever cure what ails me.

Real life is lived
in the chemically recycled
details; toasted carcinogens,
meat flavored nitrates, artificial cherry
cough syrups full of red dye #4, handfuls
of over-the-counter muscle relaxers, &
plastic Batman cups full of liquor
& carbonated high fructose corn syrup.
Even those defective childproof caps
serve the important purpose of making
one feel better.

published in Mas Tequila Review