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?

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.