corners

for the dog on the corner:
a soggy-minty scrap of paper (an experiment),
stale dry meat, tainted with grains (could have used salt),
a hunk of putrid dead rat leg (ambrosial! salivatory glands squirting at mere memory),
a bitter aftertaste of papery human hand-skin and human urine (faint, unpleasant)

for the man kitty-corner to the dog:
an Altoid (peculiarly potent and white and clean),
a sickly-sweet flesh-suckling (like sugared left-out left-overs),
the hanging sour of a crisp pickled cucumber (regretted, but glands fill & brim nonetheless),
a hint of super-saccharine raspberry high-fructose iced tea (stagnant, reminiscent of vomit)

for the woman vertically parallel to the man:
mild suggestions of pickles and berries and mints and vomit (grimace-worthy),
spice smoldering in her cheeks and tongue and inside her lip (fiery foreign flavor),
the strange melding of cardboard and metallic that is her fingernail (chewed to the quick),
a flat brown reminder of a fried-chicken breakfast (so much better cold!)

for the dog on the corner, stinking of corn-chips:
a ball—polybutadiene, natural rubber, Mooney viscosity 5-150—has lately passed by (fun!),
whiffs of feces polka-dot earth-dirt-stony sidewalk (kibble, cat-poo, crabgrass, gum),
noxious nimbi clog the nostrils (carbon & oxygen, a recipe for sneezes),
sex pheromones waft from tens of yards away (nose twitches, ears perk, tail stands straight)

for the man kitty-corner to the dog, doused in Calvin Klein:
friction urges mineral-make-up to spark and melt and smell (mica, zinc oxide, kaolin clay),
hot breath on her arm is like old dry sausage (which would have gone well with the pickle),
glossed strawberry fields wiping sweet strawberry gunk on his upper lip (forever),
floral notes mingle with the heady aroma of scalp (ears perk, spine stands straight, proboscis twitches)

for the woman vertically parallel to the man, gone five days without bathing:
onion-sweat seeps into her nose, pungent, mouth-watering, eye-watering (she could cry),
the synthetically sharp tang of clothing worn right off the rack (oh, so cheap),
a primal, bacterial smell, wending its way out his zipper, up his chest, to her face (quite a journey),
an invigorating cloud of woody man-musk decimating her sense of free will (Calvin Klein, a woman’s kryptonite)

for the dog on the corner, haunches frozen to the sidewalk:
rough pads scratch grooved concrete, a mutual under-sanding (a soft tongue heals all),
deep in the rump-forest a flea nibbles (but the haunches are frozen to the sidewalk),
deep in the eerie canals a mite mucks through wax (he will never see his family again),
a hand ruffles soft ear-flaps, scratches wirey rump-hair (never take handies from a stranger, his ma-bitch warned him, but it feels so good)

for the man kitty-corner to the dog, whose coffee went right through him:
pliable softwarm fat, yielding nicely to his calluses (hand fits like a puzzle to the valley of her hip), pliable softwarm lips, except a chapped-lip crust flakes off into his mouth (he doesn’t mind),
wide flat duck-feet bound in high-gloss dress shoes (he understands, now, Chinese girls fifty years ago),
a squirming, pushing, imminent cramp in his lower backside (gotta get away!)

for the woman vertically parallel to the man, bisected by her pencil-skirt:
hands lightly on the waist, miles from the cold hip-bones of libidinal doom (cease & desist, sir!),
skin torn from lip-meat, a piece of herself she will never retrieve (eaten),
celluloid muffin-top sliming its fat way over a woolen waist, patted by stiff fingers (so diabolical),
lips sliding around his pocked face like kids on a frozen lake in winter (hopefully she won’t break through)

for the dog on the corner, whining like a pinched pup:
a siren wails wails wails by, hundreds of decibels louder (he howls his dismay),
the arrhythmic clop-plodding of hoofed humans on concrete (solid-bodied raindrops covering the ground),
the baritone rumble of an enemy clicking past (a challenge! he growls, but he is still frozen),
the triangular tinkling of the enemy’s rabies tags, address tags, clinking like the blues (he whines his envy)

for the man kitty-corner to the dog, moaning loudly for all to hear:
fussy clips of sound emit from her lips (is it pleasure? he thinks so),
the record-scratched voice of a homeless teen, suggesting them privacy (the creak of his middle finger splayed against her back),
his own lowing moony groans, bovine, loud (he loves to hear himself talk),
the clap of her heels against the concrete as she picks up first one foot, then the other (her brief gasp as he pauses for air)

for the woman vertically parallel to the man, grunting softly and harshly:
the endless man-moan in her mouth (mini man-moan vibrations echoing through her body),
the loud ticking of his watch held in the nook of her ear (obnoxiously like her mother’s womb),
every few seconds the full gulping of her spent saliva down his throat (her gorge rose; soon he might gulp that),
the miniature voice of a hummingbird rasping out its mock-song (a loud little chicken)

for the dog on the corner, black eyes devoid of hope:
watching as a chunk of fur thunks from his neck (a little viral mange never stood in the way of love),
smiling a long black-lipped smile (who wouldn’t crack a grin at the act of mating? it’s the oldest joke in the book),
unfurling a spotty black tongue that rolls right through traffic (four-car pile-up, maybe more),
rolling right to the high-gloss black shoe, flicking it with the tip, gray drool spotting the leather (fortunately waterproofed)

for the man kitty-corner to the dog, who keeps his eyes wide open when kissing:
a cyclopsed Juliet smashing her face romantically into his (the zenith of his life to date),
the reflection of his one conglomerated eye in her prescription lenses (he raises a debonair eyebrow at himself),
his hip-bones jutting like crags from his waist, poking her (he must remember to buy a belt),
his ruddy rashed mouth dropping to his knees as she breaks from him, raises an eyebrow, runs (and fast!)

for the woman formerly vertically parallel to the man, now sprinting at top-speed to the dog:
she crouches and gingerly rolls up the spotty black tongue, across the whole highway (carefully, losing as little spit as possible),
rolls it right up into his mouth, pinches his jaw shut with her hand, plants a fat kiss on his nose (some fur comes off on her lips),
she tenderly strokes his bald swatches of mange, puppy-soft new hairs springing up in her stead (they laugh panting dog-laughs);
she encircles his neck with a shiny new collar, huffs warm breath on his haunches and pries him off the concrete, & they plod off into the sunset together (happily ever after.)