Two Poems
by Dan Encarnacion |
Dinner.
(From "Doubt", a Novel-in-Verse)
The 24-hour diner glowed.
The 24-hour diner glowed greasy in the phlegmy dark of muggied summer interstate
midnight motorists looking to make their destinations in less time than
combustibly possible.
Taillight glowworms lengthening the roadway ribbon into the realm of shrinking trees.
The 24-hour diner glowed greasy with truckers.
The truckers glowed.
The truckers glowed like languorous fireflies as they smoked in the parking lot after their
meals.
Blackjack Poppa thought of apricot-scented mason jars with holes punctured in their lids.
Little Rhumba thought of television documentaries about the mesmerizing multifarious
world of insects.
Little Rhumba thought of preying mantises.
Or is it praying?
Blackjack Poppa parked.
Blackjack Poppa parked and pulled his leg, his arms, his head, his shoulders, his torso, his
other leg from out of the car.
Little Rhumba slid out of Little Rhumba's door.
The phlegmatic fireflies stopped.
The phlegmatic fireflies stopped hovering.
The phlegmatic fireflies held their positions as if the greasy phlegmy dark struck thicker
thicker thicker.
Little Rhumba felt.
Little Rhumba felt eyes.
Little Rhumba felt eyes and saw the color of his brown skin polluted by the yellow insect-
light over the glowing diner's door.
Little Rhumba saw the color of his brown skin glorified under the fluorescence of the vinyl
diner.
Little Rhumba saw the color of his brown skin glorified in the vinyl diner's customers'
curious compound eyes.
Blackjack Poppa said, "Two."
Little Rhumba saw the waitress smile too hard with her mouth.
Little Rhumba saw the waitress's eyes—too hard for their runny over-easy edges.
Little Rhumba felt.
Little Rhumba felt eyes.
Blackjack Poppa squeezed.
Blackjack Poppa squeezed into the booth.
Little Rhumba slid.
Little Rhumba slid his eyes along the counters, along the customers, along the walls, along
the corners, along the floor, along the table, along the menu where they finally felt
comfortable and rested.
Blackjack Poppa talked.
Riackiack Poppa talked to the waitress.
Efack Poppa talked to the waitress because she talked to him.
"What would your... friend like, she said.
Little Rhumba felt.
Little Rhumba felt young.
Little Rhumba is young, but not so young as to be seen and not heard.
Little Rhumba is too young to be an equal.
Little Rhumba is too brown to be a son.
Little Rhumba slid.
Little Rhumba slid his eyes from the menu, across the table, up Blackjack Poppa's t-shirt,
up his neck, over the meadow of his furred chin, across the hillocks of his lips,
astride the ridge of his nose, into the caverns of his bright blue eyes where they
finally felt comfortable and rested.
Standards
This is my skin: brown bronzed tawny tanned earthy nutty
silken native exotic autumnal fertile
carameled honeyed toasted soiled polluted muddied
barren hairless emasculate sandy fallow sedimentary
eternally kissed by the radiance of the sun
This is your skin: white creamy ivoried virginal porcelaneous pristine
hairy hirsute freckled occidental spartan bristly wintry
ashen pallid pale blinding toneless ghostly bone blank
coarse cold spectral glacial chalky antiseptic standardized
imperial institutional dead pure as driven snow
This is latex: transparent translucent transcutaneous soft inorganic unrecyclable
waterproof leakproof capacious strong tough sticky
pliant conforming tight desensitizing binding
industrially manufactured made in America
This is my asshole (or could it be yours): dark puckered hair-haloed expandable
moist warm spongy muscular secretive silent taboo inscrutable
sensitive to penetration indifferent to evacuation
a mouth that tells no tales loose lips sink ships
And this is a dick (most probably yours): taut tense tender turgescent flush apulse
blushing eager sanguinary self-possessed hungry brainless
insatiable indiscriminate unemotional indifferent
destroyer and creator
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