Robert Krut
Robert Krut is the author of three books: The Now Dark Sky Setting Us All on Fire (Codhill/SUNY Press, 2019), which received the Codhill Poetry Award, This is the Ocean (Bona Fide Books, 2013), and The Spider Sermons (BlazeVox, 2009). He teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and lives in Los Angeles.
SCREAM INTO AN OPEN MOUTH
My torso is crowded.
My body grew another heart
to house my rage.
An old man sells rolled cigarettes
in an abandoned grocery’s parking lot,
a handwritten sign says
if you smoked, you’d be home now,
until two cops pay a visit.
My hands are packed houses.
I woke up with six fingers on each.
Every finger has four knuckles.
At the gas station up the street,
a guy walks up
to each pump, licks every handle
and walks away.
My organs have re-routed all
mechanisms, as bile turns to teardrops,
saliva becomes blood.
Two people stand on the corner
in front of my very home, screaming
directly into each other’s mouths.
Pausing, they gesture, yes,
we know. Don’t you?
My body grew an extra heart
to house my rage.