ghost proposal    journal    ultraslant    shop    about    submit    

Joe Milazzo



                               THE DREAM
                              IN WHICH WE
                              PURCHASE
                              CATAPULTS
                              IN BULK

East of inside, where the coats
groom their cowlick obsessions 
over stoic luggage, that must be
the land where your grudges
crouch. I keep awake to stay
away. I imagine how the windows
play leopards even as they practice 
their welding. But I cannot weasel
out of the yew's shade indefinite-
ly. What anesthetics, what vinegars 
rollick in the completions 
where you'd have had me follow
you. Reach me a snakebite, give
me venom, glimmering green 
and rude with filaments. With my 
solemn relish, I'll demolish 
your sturdy pen, your vale
of stolen chains. With one 
wolf, I'll scramble your wax
fruits, send them mewling, straight back 
to the artless origins of their pomp.






Joe Milazzo is the author of The Terraces (Das Arquibancadas) (Little Red Leaves Textile Series, 2012). His writings have appeared in H_NGM_N, The Collagist, Drunken Boat, Black Clock, and elsewhere. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is slowstudies.net/jmilazzo.