Going Down by Glen Armstrong

1.

I spend hours licking the zipper
on a stolen pair of women’s jeans.

Rehearsing to please.
Unhinging my tongue.

Becoming one slick entity
with whatever waits
beyond that veil of denim.

And the wheels all over town
wear down

as I go down
on copper teeth.

2.

I shave and repeat
my mantra:

“love quivers deep within
Queen Kali’s pebble of flesh.”

Anoint myself with Bottled Night.

Read some highlighted passages
from Memoirs of Josephine.

Imagine an exotic place where
thick, clear liquors pour
from lips they’ve shared

with lizards.

A place so underground
that it’s a little Chinese.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He also edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has two chapbooks scheduled for 2015: In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All.