17 May 2010 | Vol. 10, No. 1

The Flower Octagon of Old Manhattan

by NORMAN DUBIE

Laura said it must be a vagina of cabbage

with an army of white ants.

The postman in knee socks

wears an aluminum-foil hat

over his long red locks.

The bats are leaving their caves

and with some haste we have discovered early evening.

Hog intestine packed

with pickled meats and the lavender heather

of this past spring are hanging

from the ceiling.

All the Sopranos

were butchered in that booth.

An eyeball rolling across the floor,

not in silence, nearly though.

It was the daughter

who put the fork in his eye—

a glass prosthesis.

He put a butter knife in her esophagus

flooding the lungs with blood.

Most poor members of the audience,

typically and with exasperation,

adjusted the knobs on their televisions.

No one was prepared for the future trouble

in our banks. Least of all

the banks. You believe that?

Before leaving,

of course, he thought to retrieve

the eyeball. Polishing it

on his long sleeve. The pig intestine

blushing beyond belief. Electricity

leaving his hands for the streets.