4X2
an online poetry journal
Photo by Melissa Hotchkiss
Feet may not be
by Pune Dracker
Feet
may not be
a natural talking point. But in
fact, they are revealing:
Twenty-six bones, thirty-three joints.
I
can’t ever
rub yours anymore, but I wear your
grey socks with the little
red hearts that were once mine any
way.
The Bible
says it’s a lowly task to bow and
bend, then stoop, then kneel, then—
pour water into a basin,
with
servant’s heart,
and wash and wipe the feet of someone
else. Who would that send in
to a tailspin? Jesus didn’t
mind
that at all,
even in a time when feet were so
filthy. (makes him like Brett
Favre in Something About Mary)
You
once said I
didn’t skeeve you (and you didn’t skeeve
me), even that time I
cried and threw up in the yellow
cab.
Jesus’d
be all avoiding eye contact if
asked, Pick a color, Lord,
for your pedicure. I get it;
like
me he’s an
under-receiving over giver.
This is not a good thing.
People who can’t take make people
mad,
often laugh
nervously like they’re being tickled
(defense mechanism
as seen on soles in nail salons)
Now
I can take
anything you give, me and Jesus
closing our eyes, pointing:
Grapely Admired! I Am What
I
Amethyst.
Beyond the Pale Pink. We’ll try tricking
our selves and placing our
hands on the pedicurists’ hands,
which
allows a
brain to predict the sensations. I
could just pretend they’re yours,
get serious, whispering how
am
I doing?
I was real carnivilous: a discourse on eating
by Pune Dracker
1.
Forty seconds left in the third round of the WBA Heavyweight
Championship in June 1997, Mike Tyson rolled his head above
Evander Holyfield's shoulder and bit his right ear. Tyson
was disqualified, the avulsed one-inch segment of Holyfield’s
ear secured in a plastic bag. It was misplaced on the way to the
hospital. I wanted to inflict so much pain on him. Why, Mike?
This guy keeps butting me and I’ve got children to raise.
2.
What taste does flesh leave in the mouth? It was like good, fully
developed veal, said a journalist who ate the rump of a man who
had recently died in an accident. You bite your own
forearm, press down & see your molar-marks Jawsed there.
The flavor profile is not that of a sweet baby cow or the
love of a child or a heavyweight boxing championship.
There is no taste because you are not and will never be like
Mike in the ring, a genius of a body too strong at the time
for the mind accompanying it and What else could I do?
My fans are going to hate me, but I’ve got to go home to my kids.
3.
A pigeon’s mouth-feel. The breast in particular, says a
Philadelphia chef, is a mixture of duck and steak at the same time.
If you have not eaten pigeon you cannot corroborate this statement,
and we cannot ask Mike either. Because Mike is a vegan.
Because Mike raises pigeons. Because Mike first felt the desire to
fight when he was 10. A guy ripped the head off my pigeon. This
was the first thing I ever loved in my life, the pigeon. Because
Mike loves pigeons.
Poet's Statement: I'd been meaning to write a flash fiction piece about Jesus, the ultimate foot washer, getting a pedicure, though it turned into a love poem along the way. I borrowed the structure from Marianne Moore's "The Fish," which follows a pattern of 1,3,9,6,8 syllables per line in each stanza. Since most of my poems are research-based and there is so much thrilling language to be found online, I wind up with WAY too much tangential material; the strict syllabic form lovingly forces me to stay on point.
On "I was real carnivilous:" Tyson's use of language is always surprising, and I really think he has a poet's heart. He has a rich vocabulary and often makes up words, one of which is featured in the poem's title. That was one of Mike's many responses over the years when asked why he bit his opponent's ear.
Bio: Pune Dracker is a writer, editor and current MFA candidate studying Nonfiction/Poetry at The New School. Her work has appeared in SLICE and Hyperallergic.