By Jay Coral
find me a bride
if you don’t
i will eat a shrimp
so i will be attractive
as a pink flamingo
i will eat a lot of shrimps
even though i am allergic
to soft crustaceans
i will turn pink then red
and swell like a nervous anemone
and because i will be bonelessly cold
my neck will hang weak
and my shoulders will hunch
like two droopy octupuses
i will hallucinate in a coral garden
the sirens will sing about the tidepools
the nymphs will dance in their barefeet
and Sappho will massage my temples
i may spit an organ or two
and froth both saliva and enzyme
but my molecule will not dissolve
i will wrench in animal pain
and reexamine human suffering
and when i wake up in a hospital
the nurse will put me
on a pink jello diet
to settle my stomach
and calm my nerves.
Clutching at Straws 