essay on eating picture frames
joint with couch cushions, collaging colors
balance each other in,
inside picture frames
are dribbles of paint for mourners, or criers, or depressed
you, you swallow the frame whole
and watch it collide
with wooden stomach floors, an art gallery
of a ghost
I can tell you now, this isn’t an
essay on your mother in law, your
overweight uncle, the dog that died,
already three summers ago? seems
like yesterday was essay
on breaking up on his mattress, did you
read that one? your own
words? trace it into the bottom
of the sink? break the
drain, swing around
the pipes?
could’ve sworn it was
essay on overpriced carpets,
pillows of stuffing for every foot,
foot of the table that’s crooked with
misused words
falling over
no one wants to eat dinner
without it
but the family broke all
its legs, I guess, because the table
split to hexagonal shards
like its design, a pretend tree, plastic bark
a metaphor for losing
something or an
essay on a family’s loss
told by me, the entertainer, the one
who writes, and cries, and is
consistently the most yelled at
consistently yelling
the most.
Angst in Threes
White knuckles clenched. Playground boys run. They don’t stop. Kissing in
kindergarten. Kissing in third—grade. Use the tongue. Against the wall.
Everything is pressed. Naked at sleepovers. Naked in attics. Naked in
basements. Everything is sex. I never asked. I television watched. I
actor / actress. I the part. I playing stage. He smiles, bites. Indented,
bare arms. Nobody calls home. Not even thirteen. Summer camp friends.
Jewish school friends. Tennis court friends. One after another. Pinned against
me. Everyone is naked. Just so young. Just so hungry. How was school? My
little mathematician? I learning angles. Geometry of bodies. I dinner overeat.
I not sleeping. The house,
silent. I awake, alone.
For Barney
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Black, Gay, or even Purple, we must all unite…”
- Some gay CEO on the news
I pledge allegiance to the black, gay, & the
purple, & the white gay men in the high–rise
buildings among waveless waters & politicians
whose speeches hover above knees over gravel
buzzing like broiling sausages & I pledge
allegiance to Barney, violet scales, leafy green
belly bumps, I pledge to the country of Barney
& gays & blacks & minorities in speeches or
cardboard sayings or one identity–fits–all or one
identity–fits–none & purple next to my identity
like it’s as alive as I am & gays of power or really
business white gays pledge allegiance to green,
green, & green & this country that wraps legs
with flags that trip us when we run toward our
selves & this is about purple & possibly purple
is a successful ode to those settling here & always
this country’s legacy; someone’s identity is unable
to come & if I am like the purple, the rainbow’s
inside, the bottom wrung, do I, indignant, blame
the blues & yellows for not held down a hand?
I remember Barney called for family, & Barney a
guitar of songs on how to love with a whole heart
& singing, on key, family is most likely to witness
bleeding of its members but the white gay family
doesn’t see this & it’s all purple or bust & white
people all have one thing in common, all love to
call the police & I think I would like Barney if I
met him now, though I meet him every day, like
at protests, lost beneath the mayor’s thumb,
hidden in book burnings, but in sleep, they ask
me to forget, forget, he not exist, written in rest
& the cardboard shreds.
//
Sam Herschel Wein is a current Chicago resident who specializes in aimless frolicking. He has been a fellow at Tent: Creative Writing in Amherst, Massachusetts, and is currently the Editorial Assistant at Construction Magazine. Recent work has appeared in Salt Hill, Nightblock Magazine, Cahoodaloodaling, Gabby Journal, and Red Paint Hill.