The Beatitudes
Channel: Poetry for Cowards
Date: 2023-02-07

The Beatitudes 

You have no eyes   /   or neck   /   or head   /   or body   /   You make pudding with garlic and olive loaf   /   You smell like a creamsicle and you talk too loud to turtles and slugs   /   So loud that Elephants and Wooly Mammoths can hear you.   /   You look puzzled at the end of every book.   /   I can’t see your eyes move on Thursdays, and that is because you have no eyes.  You are repelling Princes, gathering truckloads of soggy potatoes.  You are the Cabbage Patch Doll at the Toys`Я Us warehouse entrance with the ugly name   /   A lion’s mane but it is infested with lice   /   an old ticket stub in the pocket of a fidgety woman   /   the loose handle on a broken bicycle.  No eyes   /   no neck   /   no head   /   no body.  Hands dressed in blooded rags from clenching shards of broken glass.  Your aunts berate you.  Your uncles pray that God have mercy on you and your future, and if you should continue living life as a cardboard puzzle left out on the living room table, you will find the dogs you keep as pets enjoy the corner pieces just as much as the center ones that you’ll soon discover   /   are gone.