12 July 2010 | Vol. 10, No. 2

Before the Fallout We Traded Imaginary Friends like Football Cards

In 1994 you slung thirty dirty verbs and my sister's pacifier over

the cinder block wall separating our house from the neighbor's.


You might not remember, but then, you weren't the one who had

to climb over and salvage it, pal; I always had your back, I was


the fixer. And yeah, we've been through this—I know you don't

exist but I must admit, even 15 years later, when nobody's around


I sometimes stick my fingers in ugly places, kiss electrical sockets

(with tongue), wrap my feet in used latex gloves. Maybe I can make


you scream survival like Albuquerque, Winter '94, or moondance

backwards over tiled gangrene/mezzanine/Hippocrene; with


a little mescaline Pegasus'll pick you up, pidgeon, you told me

repeatedly. Take it slow, baby, no ketchup this time… that's how I


got infected, see, when you jammed teeth into the lignin-lining

of my throat and croaked out spun-spazzy blues jams with a little


Dutch flavor. You littered careless symptoms like tossed Momo's

pizza ("Slices as big as your head!") over the craggy-grooved wood


ridges, buttered 'em in a BK hold-the-tomatoes smile. Now I'm

delirious—ironic right? Some kind of fever dream where I see my


sister recoil from the snowball I chuck in her ear, or where I lick

the dirt off her pacifier and pass it back to her. From swine flu I


puke pulled pork on a shag rug, and from its grimy fibers biophys-

icists invent words for my words and letters with shit-eating grins.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Jesse Damiani at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 10, No. 2, where "Before the Fallout We Traded Imaginary Friends like Football Cards" ran on July 12, 2010. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

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