Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois - Two Poems

Guillotine
 
Underneath Kayla’s shirt you’ll find two quarters
There’s a guillotine where her heart should be
Fooled again--
the cantaloupe was unripe when she sliced it open
 
In no moment is she winning
The grass on her mother’s grave is withering in the drought
 
 
 
Broken Rabbits
 
The rabbits in
Broken Toyland
have heads
whose stitching is unraveling

Mother Rabbit holds
a jug of poison moonshine
She wears a necklace of skull-and-crossbones
and a perpetual sneer
because she remembers the days
when rabbits were symbols of innocence

Now all the innocence is gone
It might have been a myth
but it was a good myth
She enjoyed it
Now there is nothing left

Her husband
smokes a joint
and talks about moving to Colorado
where they can smoke dope legally
day and night
and forget
all the things that have gone wrong in their lives

He remembers when his wife could
reliably pop out a litter of twelve
and coat their nest box with
fine warm fur

But that was a long time ago
and she has used up all her eggs

The pitchfork he holds is rusted
and the idea of American Gothic
no longer thrills him

The sun in the sky is prickly
like a porcupine
and gives little light
and no heat

It is lucky they are furred
but their fur is
mangy now
bare in places
and smells of barns
and feral cats

Broken Toyland
once held allure
the mystique of the outlaw
but it’s no longer where they want to be
However they have no choice

Broken Toyland is all they know
They have no transportation
and public busses
have stopped running
out here
so far in the country 

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over seven hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for work published in 2012, 2013, and 2014. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver.