CHRIS McCREARY
Themes & Variations : Figures in a Landscape I
Captain, that piglet is pantsless. That capon
has questions. That pony’s one trick is a big hit,
his saddle bags capacious with quips & ribbings.
We've lost the teething ring amid the haptics
& hatpins & couldn't study the stelae
because the rubbings’ve been slicked with
skeuomorphics most royal. I ordered a gimlet
& they drilled me full of cortisol,
nudged me from the loge.
Fiefdom’s just another word for flagstones
rushing up, & Nuncle, those stolen loan words
seem peevish as that panther who chafed against
commemorative buckets when he could've just
been trimmed into gloves.
––––
Themes & Variations : Figure by Water
In every retrospective, a different ship
gets wrecked & those who won't broker
what's already been bought plop the minotaur
before the cart, cart before your leopard’s
shed its spots. It's a different adage,
but we've been there, done this oopsing again
as prop closets bulge against their mannequin hands
splotchy from previous commissions : abrasion
& nail hole, errata in the monograph
reminiscent of vatic misfires. Frolic's only
for those grandees who pronounce aunt or vase
as if, ah, the natatorium’s reserved for clinics
in backstroke, clawfeet already warming baths
for after, none of which is for you, you of the public
pool, you who should’ve learned which surface
is permeable, which one puddles & scums.
––––
Themes & Variations : Conversation Piece
We’d reminisced the rebus
in the reprint’s anamnesis but it's
suss : I was a bug, a pest festering,
a fusty cud tumbling
from some silly goose
who gandered & ran afoul of louche
ruminants. It's too soon to kid
when the fricasse
simmers, so go poach
those other bunnies busy thumping
for your tourists, voyeurs with lucre enough
to choose who picnics the litter after that rascal’s
ransacked the cabbage & kerfuffled a ruckus
up the hutch.
––––
Chris McCreary's latest book of poems, awry, was published last year by White Stag. More recent work can be found in Antiphony, Ballast, Hush, Noir Sauna, and #Ranger. He lives in South Philadelphia and on IG at @chris___mccreary.