Bill Woodrow, Self Portrait in the Nuclear Age 1986. Tate Gallery
DeWayne Dickerson
Nuclear Age
for P373K
they were a jumbo people with tastes
sprawling, diverse. their tongues were subject for fetish
alone; sequentially lubricating their own ribbed surfaces
with saliva disguised as a flavor of choice.
their concave profiles resembled mud-filled spoons.
they spit on everything. good chops off the lamb sizzled
in pans of viscid fluid. they found ways, ingeniously,
to freeze cubed divisions of saliva
forming a slushy for impotents to simulate testicle mucus.
once upon a time, these wobbling giants bred offspring
roly-poly, yet nimble enough. during objectionably
young stages in growth, they were able
to climb out of open windows. second
stories on railroad apartments were so troublesome,
tragic for parents. the austere, obese empire told them
pump more blood for jerky, piss & booger your faucets
without household purification filters.
this is what made them big & strong. then bosses
covered every window with narrow bars that only went
to an expected height of spring adolescence. no one
questioned such logic? at least no one will
record those efforts in the annals of time we revisit --
a candle lit future, fascinated by fossils of the species
alone, their only way out fastened shut.