-Variable positions-

1.

The Studebaker Starlight
Parked at the ESSO station's pumps
Across the street

Couldn’t seem to make up its mind.

Maybe it would move swiftly forward

Like an arrow toward Saint Sebastian.

Maybe it would retreat
In the direction of its own demise.

At the wall of the entry to his house
Next door to my own house,

The chickens

Were hanging upside-down
Dressed in their soiled feathers.

The entryway is screened,
But the screen is torn at the edges.
This is where the flies enter.

Inside, water is beginning to boil in the deep,
Twin-handled pots on the gas-stove  

And Uncle Pete is positioned
In the dank entry with a sharp knife.

Wings are tied-down to their breasts
With yarn and the bloodless

Legs are tightly bound at the wall
Where throats are slit,— the blood-
Drops tapping into the shallow
Pans receiving them on the entry's floor.

2.

She'd walk down the grand

Marble staircase of our high school,
Clutching her books
To her breast with folded arms
And I'd be there, standing
On the floor below waiting for her.

When the chickens bled-out
From their opened necks

My Aunt Olympia plucked them, washed them
And submerged them into

The waiting pots of boiling water, the greying
Claws piercing the waterline as if in agony.

3.
Outside, we'd walk together
Between two buildings to her next class

Where she knew I’d be waiting by the opening
Door at its end.

                         

                             for Elaine San Marcos