Out For Lunch & Fake Leather Sweet

OUT FOR LUNCH

by Gregory Grube


First time, I brought the knives that were always
close, hovering in the space around me.  Second time,
I brought the need, left it incomplete, unable
to find it after. Third time, I brought the mouths
full of prayers and mucus.  Fourth time, the anecdotes
came out errant and promiscuously masculine. 
This time, it’s the table talk I bring, dozens
of naughty putti painted above could start pissing
on us at any moment. What fairy would give a fox
a pair of gloves?  You said, “We need the cricket
more than he needs us.” I showed you my dwarves
after you showed me yours, but my eyes never
opened and my nose never grew. Give me a broom
any day. Hand me the mushrooms.


FAKE LEATHER SWEET

By Gregory Grube


bargain with unravel starts in casino on side street flirting with uber-
mensch decades after orthodontic gaffe, the back flashes over with faces

looking younger and riot in the same breath as hangnail and deer tick

not resolutely native as in broke down and plainspoken on a landing strip
even after you’ve been asked not to brag. you say epilepsy is not the part

of the apple gone missing from the tree, the sky has so many tones

some evenings there is no more fear left to ply until you remember
how abruptly the wind can shift, but the body is not like that: strictly

territorial, getting away with murder, while you wait for the components

to be delivered, first the back of the house, then the front, today’s inflammable
building materials simply a marvel to behold until every billboard

is a brothel full of the scandals that no father can buy the secrets into.

there is a calm years after the city catches fire that would uplift you even if
the aerosols didn’t upset your sensitivities so.