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Five Poems
by Jasmine Dreame Wagner


Heavy Petting

Autodidact in matters of skin.
Yr ready snare.
The weight of moist
and chocolately-delicious, sheen
of hydroponic Kodachrome. Get out

yr summer vernacular. Yr two-for-one amateur
hour, splay yr most ergonomic seasoning
and broil yr roast rare. Pry the skull
off yr snowglobe.
Let it all hang out.

To-Do List for the New Bride of Secaucus, New Jersey

Listen here, Bride of plate-glass.
Migratory birds collide with windows.

Bride of beets and honey-
ham, a man eats what he can

and washes his hands.
Bride of climate change.

Bride of small change.
Bride of no change for a twenty,

Generate a buzz.
Post photos of the smoke as seen...

Revised To-Do List for the New Bride of Secaucus, New Jersey

It aspired to buy enough water for a city.
It wanted clean mountain water.

It demanded the first day of the new school year.
It became important

to show the quantity and value of glass.
Nectar rained down upon it.

Now, please repay the sky
by frying up an omelet.

Lone Ranger

Breakfast was soon disposed of
and the cavalcade set out.

Patriarch of the herd
Epic of the plain

Too young to discern
the National Trust from the bull ring,

he wore slacks and a tropical shirt.
His antics—riding wild

bellyflopping,
quaffing red bull's

blood and vodka
fit for men. The produce aisle at the A&P

offered seven different varieties
of lettuce. He chose none.

Under immense oaks, his pale mane
wandered. He measured

angles of shadows, of brass,
of sun. He weathered

his best cologne.
He entered the bare garret.

With nothing but his hands,
he hung the wild mule.

It was full of light.

We Draw Heavily on Physical Strength

To preserve our incandescent virtu
As if a celestial yearning
took a steel-toothed bit
to the fate of a great city
We lay planks across the mud
We enter the garden only to burn there
Volcanic fern, conch, tuba, trumpet, table
of contents in the hot, convecting mantle

Quiescent bodies, our eyes
verge on objects We
smoothly track
our prey