Rosanna Lee (Manhattan, New York, USA): Two Poems

LOBSTER

Your plated, bespattered shards
enclose the meat of human
delicacy, ripped apart, smothered
in cups of oily lard and slurp.
Your neck, perhaps, or that round
swinging fan of an ass, $18.95 entree.
Some VDA ridden sailor hoisted
this oversized, obscene insect,
with his antennae flailing pathetically about,
and the lodged furry creature caught in its neck
flapped out like the buzz of the insane.
This sailor, see, he was 
very, very hungry! So, alas - crash
against the jetty just like the Grecian
octopus, and lobster's life gave out
into last cringes and epilepsies,
like those huge black summer ants.
So: he heaved his last, obscene breath,
and the sailor -
he made love to the dead lobster,
stuck himself messily inside 
the encased filaments of short haired flesh,
and he feasted, and hollered, 
shrank in awe of this beauteous prospect,
oh lobster, come back to life, I love you!

APPENDAGES

As a little girl, lying in bed in the dark,
I would stare at the little budding anthills,
pointy torpedoes. I would imagine them one
day as mountains.

Now, I understand how dangerous it is to
have that life force strapped to you,
hanging from your heart.

In the Grapes of Wrath, she gave that old
starving man her breast after her blue baby
had been buried: such life!

A death spy located at the side, growing,
aching, throbbing. Keep it a secret from
mother.

I've looked at the films, they look 
like bleach spilled on seaweed under a microscope,
singing, sing, sing:
for me, it'll be fine.

© Rosanna Lee 2007