Jeni Olin
BLUE COLLAR HOLIDAY


My Boyfriend, the Infidel...

My boyfriend, the Infidel, is dying of old age
so I am praying to Virginia Woolf to soften his heart.
I had to kill a lot of impulses to get to him & his point of misery.
A black cloud chased me with erotic intention then.
My vanity drove me to the ends of the earth
in search of nubile flesh & my runny little heart
slid back & forth along the glamour axis
that is the Rivers' Divide -- an iffy affair flecked with grief.
I fled to a Mexican isle just to lose my honky pallor
turn the faint & dirty mimeograph
red of nipples, die on the line if I recall
there was a bandaged harem somewhere in the background
brownout, sparklers, girls with organic breasts
ducking through oyster fog...
The subject of the mural was the Apocalypse & I think
you handled the destruction of the world
as gently as possible Honey I
am really bawling now, can't get through --
we're both sticking to our guns
but I'm loaded, really bombed, shot up
all night with the horrors though my cousin,
my gastroenterologist says I'm fine inside.




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