rhinestone casket from appreciates you. by joseph biss

brushing my teeth with fennel paste
the sweet taste like the smell
of the dog my grandma
left alone in a hot room

when i was ten or twelve
I’d like to this is was less barbaric
but i’m going to
implore you do believe

the dowage of the fifty route
the bane of a daughter-in-law
the game my mother through saw
father defeated pawn

sure it’s hard to grasp
such a sweet old lady
she used to use death
as her bargaining chip

thought she had indulgence bought
after all her husband built
that church with his cheating hands
bastard sons and voter fraud

committed her in the sixties
released and revenging since
rotted her from the inside out
filled to the brim with cancer

you professed to my twin and i
you wish you had died mid-sleep
remembering my tears you cried
i’ll keep you up for a wakeful death

hospital beds made of
grey trombone slides
bedside manners
appearances kept not tossed aside

• Folk
• folk
• psychedelic folk
• spoken word
• Lake George