Sally, smiling with her subcutaneous-white teeth,
looks very thin now.
She wears a red viscose top from Farmers
and bares SmileDirect teeth
like in a desert full of yellow bones
Sally is a spine bleached by the sun.
Beautiful Sally.
I heard we evolved from apes to homosapiens
because we started taking magic mushrooms
and found God.
My brain, your brain, Sally’s brain,
all grey wet walnuts driving our meat machines
as we shrink and grow and shrink and grow
and waste our time counting almonds
and halving stock cubes and slicing cucumbers
and pretending they taste like chips.
Just eat some chips, Sally.
You and your magic brain and desert teeth—
hair a golden helmet, plate held like a god’s attribute,
like hungry Minerva
like an ancient statue slowly shrinking as the desert winds
of seashells and low-cal rice cakes
blow all about you.
Sally—the lone and level sands
stretch far away. Across the distance you watch me
like the Mona Lisa, like a predator or a carnivore—
like something hungry.
