planet earth III

Sometimes I let bad things happen

because they can be undone 

but when they can’t… 

I’m a hopeless frog in your laundromat

my spine is the length of a perfume sample 

I’ve begun, inexplicably, to dream

of spare heels in sex cars 

and nightclubs next to just-blown volcanos 

there’s this shredded chimp vagina

this bludgeoned jackfruit 

dragging the Ugandan jurisprudence

it informs me that globalization 

is a tenement apartment 

like the one I fucked you in 

before me flicker tasteful cinematics

of chiming hazel dogs

eating my roommate

she evolved to be 

exactly this afraid 

I pet the rabbit fur ushanka 

feel toward it 

a useless maternal emotion 

it shivers black light 

I pet it 

again and again 

the salt on the road glitters

like meth at a lavender angle 

we’ve babysat this night before 

the EBT screen broaching

the subject of faith 

snow accrues—

it thinks I’m dead

dead like a mother monkey

Benin Gardner is a writer and dancer from Los Angeles.