Kuato

Alone again, it’s a race thing,

he surmises, but then again who

can say for sure, he’s so drunk now

that the oddly sleek and futuristic

Martian barstool  seems to rock him

to unsettled sleep, so drunk that

he’s covered in a solution of sweat

and tacky mucus and God only knows

what else. He’s in a baby sling,

his life is fetal, but it has advantages,

the bass drum influence of the human

heart in his sleeping ear dampens

this howling psychic miasma,

this future looming sharp and terrible.

These women, these women

should know he’s a man where

it counts, all he wants is a hand

on his scraggly forehead, sharing

in his toothless grin at the weight

of all he knows, all he’d whisper

softly in their ears if they’d just

open their minds, open their minds.