12gauge.com 2002

Lice-a-Faye

Supper air breathes unpleasant my leisure time;
Vietnamese boil dogs and rats, I suppose.
I take the stairs to hotel Balma's second floor
where waits supper, my live-in Lice-a-Faye.

I call my Faye, Lice-a-Faye; I like the sound,
the way tongue jacks back and dips, front teeth
lodge on my lower lip-- I do not like her smell.
Oral-muscles speak Lice-a-Faye, ten lice run
up from stead of the bed; swarm five bugs out
from her filthy Amazon jungle, Jivaro head.

Lice-a-Faye looks Brazi-Andean, she may be--
came with rental and sheet, one clean per week,
brown water, towel and soap, fan and swatter.
If I could, some day, call her simply lovely Faye,
without preambled lice, I'd stroke, comb her hair,
treat scabby ears, soak-out lice in lavender water--
watch them circle in the tub, forever drain away--
I watch the ceiling fan, make love to liceless Faye.

Vietnamese came Thursday a week ago-- stew
coctioned dog and rat with curry and mellanaize,
fry their ham, spam, and buffalo rinds, bring fish
in newsprint, hang musical chimes, stand and gawk

at Lice-a-Faye feathered out in feedsack dress,
hair to back of grimy knees, blowgun lizards
off the porch, darts drop parrots out of trees.
Lice-a-Faye wears totem beads--one each sacred
season of the year; she pleas for sex-- I eat, I bite.
Lability rears-- I say, no eat-bite me, and turn away.

Missus Balma reads the Bible book, goes to mission
every day, prays for me, Vietnamese and Lice-a-Faye.

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