No subject, not this time.
From: Tom Budday
Date: Jun 17, 2008 7:20 AM
Subject: RE: Ballad of Horselover Fat
Body: i have been really impressed with the growth in your writing lately. i suspect it is a direct reflection to a personal growth.

Ballad of Horselover Fat
by Stephanie Lane Sutton

You didn’t know, couldn’t answer
after making love, when I asked you
how Philip K. Dick died.
Eventually we fell asleep,
our bodies lined evenly next to each other
like twin snakes. In the morning
you eat the venom
from behind my teeth.

You buy me breakfast.
The waitress has a tattoo of my name
on her forearm.
I see it as she hands you your eggs.

It was a stroke.
Five days later the line had fallen flat
and they pulled the machine out from under him.
No more blood moving beneath his flesh.
But they say the hair keeps growing after you die,
and the nails. The electricity
clings to those roots
for some months.
His face slides off his cheekbones
but his skeleton is in need of a shave.

You have given your body over
to the forces of now. You wish to stay here.
As a man, you fade away.
The light from the window behind you
has washed out your lips already.
You’ve got no fat for me to hold on to.