by Connolly Ryan

With boisterous self-inflatable whosey-whatsitz aplenty afoot,

how can a miniature freak get any quality slap around here?

Finished fishing for gorgeous sonnets

in the deeps of her bloomers anymore,

I less-the-none feel tight in the lung

and watchful as a poked-out eye.

Mountains are stacked with mercy though,

which makes a man remember warm mommy

stirring oatmeal and bluebirds on the clothesline

and the bosoms of dewy divas orchestrating

asters adjacent the cistern. Things tumble, bleed

and wed is pretty much it. Clown falls asleep

at the tractor wheel, next comes the deadpan

bedpan flash of twin faces to feed. Could go home and shake

the wingnuts from my randy wand I suppose,

but favor restraint long as the roses torment me so well.

May rain soon so I might visit the pretty nodders

in the turning-greenhouse. Few plump drops hit

my page with bossy poise and of a sudden I want

to hit the ground naked and spill my glut into the seeds.

She can do that to a man—Nature—make him focus

on the pacific then drive a train through his groin.

That lesbian in flipflops knows the score.

The garlic in her hooha is just one stroke

of ancestral wisdom keeping malady at bay.

The waves in her short hair are perfect

as children running to and away from home.

Connolly Ryan was born in Greenwich Village, New York in 1967. He is currently a professor of literature at University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he was thrice a finalist for the Distinguished Teaching Award. His visceral and witty poetry has been published in various journals including Bateau, Ditch, Umbrella, Satire, Scythe, Slope, Meat For Tea, Pannax Index, Satire and Old Crow. He is also a multiple Pushcart nominee. He has two finished manuscripts: Fort Polio and The Uncle Becky Chronicles.