Chapbook Fellowships

The Gods Describe Building
Bodies, Like Badger's

We pour the eyes in with a ladle
like postholes half-filled with mud-
water, tap them in if we have to. Sprinkle
hair onto bald, moist limbs and faces,
like boiled potatoes—sometimes
we confuse female
for male and she is left looking like
a pubescent billy goat. We take
the liver and kidneys squatting
like frogs from the brown dresser drawer—
the flaps of skin pinned open
with a system of strings.
The pliers are for pulling ears
from two white-rasped
skull-craters. We shake the body
hard by the arms—penis
and more pop out—teeth fill
the mouth gap, and finally, the green
leakage of ordure falls from that button
of twisted flesh.