Because Tuesday morning is murder, the intersection is holy
knotted, breakfast tacos foiled out there, waiting in suburbia,

aware their rosy cheeks want our kisses, but now you;
you’re knifing at our hunger and ETAs. Your exoskeleton

body inserts into Shepherd—the street needs car shepherds
to roam, and you pretend crumpled, orange road cones are burrs

digging at your fleece. We wish grey wolves would bite
your neck. We here must appear as sheep in a pasture

perpendicular, yet still trapped from your blockade. No,
gentle soul, we herd as goats staggering to this starbursted

abyss hoping for disgruntled roughage, wanting to sleep
on raised platforms, ideally pallets, to dry away our urine,

directionally above you, near the nude house begging for eons
to sell, its yellow signs say no credit check. Do you think we’re

kidding when we say our upper lips can sense your spine?
We’ve blood-signed a scroll saying we’ll find tenderness

in every living creature except now, because of you,
we’ll reconvene our congress of flattened

pupils to amend using our four-compartment stomachs.
Here, truth digests and this rudeness we will horn.

John Milkereit resides in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues of Panoplyzine. He has published two chapbooks (Pudding House Press) and three full-length collections of poems, including most recently from December, A Place Comfortable with Fire (Lamar University Literary Press).