Vivi Rubanenko excerpt from Strange Bird

There’s something to say about the man in the pigeonhole, the biker, lip chatter

The bus is a lonely place

Music is not how I remember it to be, The conductor cuts us off Somewhere, Several seats away There is an undeliberate whispering

It could’ve been “the inky city is polluted with people”

But there’s nothing to say about lipstick urges and the road to kill If you ever swallow a tooth Wash it down with a glass of milk And let your mother read you a bedtime story Or you could cough it up and flush it down the toilet like your dead goldfish you forgot to feed

If you water it maybe a tooth plant will sprout inside your tummy

Or maybe you’ll accidentally waterboard yourself

That’s the funny thing about “living”

No matter what you choose to do

With your ingested fang

Your spit down molar

Your pointy member

Know that you are on your own and no one is coming