Livio Farallo
if i were carried off by something accidental
nothing else but water turning down
the dusty road. it's just
weather dead from the bathtub to the street.
and you hear me singing like a christmas
decoration, bright as a crucifixion;
traditional, maybe finally dying someday.
unlike willy loman with traveling bags
putting exhaustion to shame, and
something wild in his hair of his sons and wife.
in the moon, the roar of talons from even a small bird
is blindingly loud.
under the metal skull cap,
eyeballs wasted and shaking in smoke.
at the sight
of a hairy nail pointing,
the smell goes out of you.
Bio
Livio Farallo is co-editor of Slipstream and Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College. His work has appeared or, is forthcoming, in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Helix, Rabid Oak, The Blue Collar Review, Otoliths, Ginosko, and others. His collection "Dead Calls and Walk-Ins" chronicles his job as a taxi driver many centuries ago.