April Fox

Let’s sell these things

on a street corner somewhere 

looking far too innocent, with raised eyebrows and lids

open wide, and the hint of a smile

hanging around the edges 

of our lips

Let’s open our coats and offer them,

hanging there from rusted hooks

ten for a penny, twelve for a dollar

buy one get one free

Fingers torn off with the tendons rough and bare,

tongues sliced away, dripping blood and insolence 

eyeballs carved out carefully

with the sharpened edge of a spoon-

if you peer inside, you might see the thing

that made you raise the blade. 

Let’s sell these things, pressed between the pages of a journal

long-since burnt

scribbled onto dirty palms

professionally bound

and sent out from a factory

like underwear, or paint. 

Let’s sell these things, perched up

on a barstool 

sneakers kicking air

face too far from the microphone 

whisper, shout, silence, sing

Let’s sell these things 

and count the coins

let them go without regret

let them land on someone else to hold,

and earn back what they stole.