Breasts Danny Lawless

From The Ampersand Review, Vol. 2

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

B r e a s t s Danny Lawless

Whose thoughts if they think them and whose smell

Are the secret subtle meanderings of an insect across a tabletop

In the moments before it crawls in a jar and breathes its last

Under a sugar cube.

Breasts of licorice and sour cabbage, and the dark aquaria

of jewelry stores,

Mole-dappled breasts beautiful like the pin-pricked cheeks of criminals

on post office walls.

Breasts of rainlight and hazed-over windows

In the silver-splintered shacks of hermits adrift in the woods,

Breasts that stand on tiptoe that are long-dark chandeliers

Breasts that are the mouths of gingerbread men that form

the sweet letter O,

Whose voice is the voice of a doll but dipped in poison.

Breasts that vanished ages ago together with the horses and clouds that

admired

Breasts dusted with powder, which beneath my caresses

tonight are like

The crumbling covers of an old-fashioned science fiction novel

Upon which a double sun the color of champagne rises

above an airless planet.

The kind one wants to twist by the ear

When no one is looking.

Daniel Lawless is a womanizing, bank-robbing bandit.