"Mailbox Patience" by Benjamin Niespodziany
Campus is an eyeless moose
complaining about a house party.
A camera strap made of cattle
prods. I am the third
skirt on an assembly line, berserk
and unbecoming, missing
a button. Is it true
that firearms can turn
your arms blue? Something
about the coil and all
I can think about is how
someone once filmed a rooster
pecking a cobra, swallowed it
whole. I stuffed myself and my soul
into my mailbox and waited to surprise
my wife (a mailwoman) but forgot
it was Sunday, grew bored
once I realized my mini fridge
was still open, once I recalled
my doctor’s advice to stretch once (if not
twice) before pranking my patient wife.
"Thunder Before Lightning" by Benjamin Niespodziany
With her metal boots, she never looks up,
continues to repeat, “Sure, sure,
the sky is great out here
and those stars know a thing
or two, but it's the serpents in the grass
you should be concerned about.”
It's why she carries a cattle prod.
A snake ate her husband on their wedding
night. She stepped into the hotel
and saw an anaconda swallowing
her beloved whole. She stabbed it
with the axe they used to cut
their wedding cake, but it was too late.
Now she wears its scales
as a belt, a fanny pack purse, calls herself
the Viper Queen Hearse. “They deny
us as gods, blend right into where we stand.
Pass me the housewine while I grab
a machete with my free hand.”