Three Poems

Numbers

My eyes are wet with faith today.
My eyes are wet with lizard pee
and faith. And faith falls like hard rain
through the clouds of my language.
And faith falls down like lizards peeing
through the hard rain of my days.
It’s like my days are what I’m faithful in,
and I’m the rain that’s falling hard
through language, through the grass
that grows on God, or the grass
that grows like language on
the rain inside my eyes—
which we both know is lizards
peeing. Which we both know is faith.

Vitamin Face

His cause of death was “envelopes.”
His ghost looked nothing like him.
His hands were full of loose-leaf tea.
Blood on the riverbanks, blood on the oceans.
There were tire marks inside his brain.
His office was painted a glandular yellow.
He liked to eat “gorilla dust.”
Blood on the barbecue, blood on the fuses.
He was bald as the blue August sun.
He only listened to music in April.
He knew I would not miss him.
Blood on the garden gnomes, blood on the moss.

I Am a Dentist

I eat teeth.
If I am dating you,
it is because I want your teeth
near me at all hours.
My bed is like
one of those racecar beds
that children have
except mine’s
shaped like teeth.
I am fabulously wealthy.
My wallet leaves
bite marks on my butt.
I have many dark tattoos
of historically-significant
molars. Yes…
Come over to my mansion.
It smells like health insurance.
We’ll have dinner.
Bring your teeth.

∩

Lloyd Wallace runs Poetry Nightly. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Annulet, the Cleveland Review of Books, the Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Pittsburgh. You can read more at lloydwallace.com.