White Print Inc

by Rob Lipton

the wasp god was down to his last
thermometer, intolerable during times
of plenty, but he would abide
it wasn’t as if the span of days
allotted were necessary as a reminder
or the manner in which his wife
would nag him about oral sex
sideways comments about “size
mattering after all” were a buzz
kill, but there was Nancy with her lavish
breasts and guttural chug
when she would come repeatedly
as if she were an action figure
in a porno, sometimes one couldn’t
tell the damage done by the mercury
or the action of preparing a mud nest
stuffing paralyzed spiders in amongst
the eggs, some little responsibility, not
enough for fond memories, but this still
confuses laughter with hollow panicked
guffaws, the kind that usually greet a banjo
player swinging his instrument into
the audience section failing to participate
in the sing-along, alone, left to the dust
and intemperate swags of neurons firing
like a platoon of Barney Fifes late to the party,
you have time for rummy and mixed doubles,
to arrange the oval things into perfect circles