The Device

You know when I lived as a catfish in the Nishnabotna
I would hold my breath as I swam past pipe fixtures
Even if they were just floating by
Lost limbs of the pesticide factory

My whiskers erect
There goes a threaded leg

Gasoline rainbows enshroud a 1912 T-model carcass
Coziest machine hosts a home collection of impaled worms

Catfish love crucifixions
I myself prefer funerals

Sharp dressed skeletons sway
Cinder blocks laced to their shiny black shoes

They say bridges are cliffs of hell
See their soggy faces
I chew their soggy eyes

A dead sex machine fell from one’s coat pocket
Rubber lust stuck in the mud
He always liked to deceive the people he loved