Cunning Linguist

Let me be the first to shake your hand
          fresh from a shattering kiss,
raspy cackles from the street.

You'll feel the pressure release with a hiss,
          a final burst of handclapping,
Eureka! from the slaughterhouse. 

A lot of Christians have chickens these days.
          I'm ferhoodled, too.
The elephant of surprise.

I can honestly say, after a week
          at your funeral, post-deathblow merriment,
you put the wee in ennui

and even though fascinators were encouraged
          they can make you feel silly
when you pass out in the pilaf.

The last time we hung out,
          just after nightfall with the sex poet,
you told me about your first cunnilingus smackdown,

drool down your feathered brain,
          a kind of faraway tinkering that soothes
the shampoo revenge mood,

that quiets the jostling nebulae.
          It's interesting being alive
when you no longer care,

much water under many bridges,
          suns up and suns down,
short breaths where the shaft entered.

Leads to drinking, though,
          and a kind of disheveled beauty
in a head-in-the-oven, hose-in-the-tailpipe

kind of way. You are much better off
          as a breeze tickling trees, carcass free,
no one to blame but me.