Ben Nardolilli
On Eating a Popsicle
In the beginning there was
A red bullet,
A mass of lipstick,
A phallus, engorged with icy veins,
A pope, riding on a broom stick,
All looking back at me.
After the first bite, the cherry shell
Was ripped away and a blue puddle,
Frozen on the top, appeared with crystals
Laying around its dark center, a solar anus
In the middle of my treat. I bit down until the edges became
Square and the blue screen came on,
The ice fuzzing over in static shards.
So I changed the channel with my teeth,
Until a wooden tongue came poking
Out at me, stained blue, like my own
As if it had been eating a popsicle
Out of my throat.
In the final bite, all that was left,
Was a road coming out
From the raspberry flavored sky,
And this scene I made vanish too.
An Outline of What Remains
A man’s age is told in the look of his ankles,
How they hang off his legs and bulge over his feet,
If the tendon is tight and the hair is dry.
They are the weak spot from the start,
Emerging out before the head does,
The blade is drawn and the child
Springs out like Athena, without
The natural passage into the world.
For years they are chubby, swollen,
Absolutely delectable, twins of marzipan
And calling out to be held or pinched.
One day they are buried as the feet
Begin to wander in crowds, out in public,
The heel embraces its higher brother
And brings it down with it, to oblivion,
Under the sheet of an elastic sock.
Now I realize in the morning,
My father’s ankles have found a home in me,
Hairy and emaciated, except for the bone
Which sprouts like an onion, engorged
From all the jumping and rolling out of bed.
Ben Nardolilli: I am a twenty five year old writer currently living in Arlington, Virginia. My work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, One Ghana One Voice, Caper Literary Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, Super Arrow, Grey Sparrow Journal, Pear Noir, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Recently, a chapbook of mine Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, has been published by Folded Word Press. I maintain a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and am looking to publish my first novel.