Mathias Svalina

Wastoid

My lover is a bronze statue of a deer. You purchased him at a garage sale. You & my lover are now in love. You love my lover because you know I love my lover & you love my lover in all the ways I taught you about love. But there is a sack of millet on your living room floor. And there is a hole is the corner of the sack of millet & mice run up to the sack of millet & stuff their mouths with millet & run back to their hole beneath the refrigerator. You place the bronze statue on the mantel. You place beside it a vanilla scented candle & light that with a wooden match. You watch the mice run from the sack of millet to the refrigerator, trying to determine which mouse is me.

Wastoid

This poem says that time passes swiftly: Time passes swiftly. But the difference between an ocean & its shore takes about an hour to understand & after that you have to understand it for the rest of your life. When I walk outside to fetch the mail there is a thick white cloud around my head & it obscures my vision. I want the sun to make my skin feel tight & it will but not quite yet. Then Death arrives with his big black cloak & his scythe a’ready for reaping. We sit on my orange couch & I give Death the bad seat, the one with broken springs.