Many of Us Have Dirty Mouths

We addicts of the exotic lunch believe in cheap landscapes

and delirious roller-coaster bureaucracies. For us,

the world hosts a medical conspiracy and chooses

melancholy hotels. We’re substandard

but not because we eat too much.

We’re the lunch of misery.

As we lay drunk, passed out beneath tablecloths our arms are being sliced

in the dream of a handsome butcher,

our own arms carved to order.

We become streaky knaves, romantic sorrowful miscreants,

misers of most essentials. Most industries protect each other.

We repress and are kept alive. We either talk or act.

It was to be expected that our illness would become so great.

We’ve never been good at being perfectly well.

Shane Chergosky was born in Minnesota where he was raised on stuffed cabbage and heavy metal. Recently, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Opal Literary, Juke Joint, South Florida Poetry Review and Pithead Chapel. He is an MFA Candidate at George Mason University.