Vida Mikalcius
Reciprocated Love
A man baby-sat my cow
and left her alone
un-milked for forty days
She died from lack of affection
When the man dragged my cow’s corpse to be buried
in a ditch
upon a bed of moss
he tripped over a mousetrap His big toenail caught
turned black and fell off
He came to me complaining
about his unforeseen bad luck
I failed to warn him
about the forty year curse
I had a witch put on him
I found the witch on 40th street’s corner
living in a shopping cart
warning the world about the end of the world
She brought my cow back to life
and milked her every morning and night
In return for the attention
she asked for a bed of hay
so she could sleep closer
For she and the cow became inseparable
The witch’s father once raised cows
butchered them too
The cows’ throats were slit
Their blood drained
while hung
from hooks on the ceiling
She became a vegetarian
and slit her father’s throat
She told the authorities
she slipped in the kitchen
with the butcher’s knife sliding
across her father’s Adam’s apple
When his corpse fell off his seat
onto a checkered tile floor
his big toe snapped in a mousetrap
Our Fairy Tale Ending
When your dead
I’ll peel your skin off
and create a miniature figurine
of you for my pocket
I’ll bring you
to fifth street café
to laugh point and whisper
at fighting couples
We’ll ride a carriage
behind two horses asses
through the crowded park
touching tips of weeping willows
giggling at the folks
we’re about to crush
beneath wooden wheels and horses hooves
When we pass the gnome
with lemon eyes and candy hair
living in the oak tree
chowing down deer brains
we’ll laugh point and whisper
He’ll glare
and glow crimson
still upset at our last attempt
at capturing his soul
Some officers on donkeys
will chase us with nothing but
low voltage tazors and aims
of eighty year old blind women
We’ll climb the fire escape
of a boarded up
cockroach infested factory
far ahead of our pursuers
I’ll skip to the ledge
kiss your forehead
balance on the gargoyle’s
humped back
my big toes groundless
and leap forward
I’ll eat you
shoving food as face as I can
my cheeks turning into chipmunks
so on my way down
before I hit the ground
just like you
I can have you in me too.