I met this girl named
Annie Trufant
At the
Village Green record store
While looking for
Kid A on vinyl
It was a Thursday
Annie has a tattoo
on her lower back that she affectionately calls a tramp stamp
Annie told me about it while we lay in bed smoking
Pall Malls, listenting to Domestica
When Annie leans forward her shirt rises to reveal
that red and black star
that she drew in
Eighth grade
In Mrs. Carter's art class
It cost two hundred dollars on a warm September day
The artists' name was Jeff, he listened to
the Foo Fighters
Annie didn't mind the pain after the first few minutes
She barely bled, Jeff told her
And he said it was one of the best
Original designs
He had seen in that year
Annie liked my hand placed on her tattoo when we slept, my other hand
under her neck
Annie ended our relationship
When we were at
Starbucks
We both had
Black coffee
I didn't cry but
Neither did she
I met this girl named Susie (or Suzy) at a party
We drank
We fucked
I turned on the light as she got dressed and I noticed she had a
Lower back tattoo
A tramp stamp
Every girl has one
It was a star or something stupid like that, I didn't ask
I didn't talk to her much, I went home, everything in its right place
I vomited and passed out
The walk at 8 a.m, December is
Still dark, the moon is barely visible
Until the sidewalk turns to linoleum
And the sky into harsh white light
Bouncing off the blackboard and sanitized desk-tops
The instructor is a lizard, a Sungazer
It's a male lizard, I know this because
he has raised scales on his arms
and wears a white polo-shirt
That compliments his eyes
And his skin
As I looked upon
Instructor Cordylus Giganteus
He regurgitated a book
Written by a more prominent lizard
Possibly Dr. Iguanidae
Sungazers cannot regenerate their tail, this could be why he is
Obviously nervous, his feet restless
His eye scans that half of the room
The other eye, that half of the room
looking for danger, or female Sungazers
The room exists in two halves
For Mr. Cordylus Giganteus
As he stumbles on his own tongue
The fluorescent lights fall on him in pallor,
He looks sick with his uneasy hands
Those tiny greenish-brown fingers bent towards each other
And then flipping outward in contrived hand gestures
I am a student
Until I become frustrated with my desk and my pencil and especially
Instructor Cordylus Giganteus
So I turn into a lion and
Surely every other student is some ferocious, frustrated feline too
Tired, waiting to be fed
I move the lizard in my padded palm
both of my yellow eyes on his brown skin
Staring
Starving
Waiting
until the end of class so I can
be a person again
I could have devoured him
With one effortless gulp
But we lions have little use for early morning Sungazer lizards with only
One eye on each side
I crave Dr. Iguanidae