how they survive the upper peninsulaSarah only sings out of tune when she’s in the shower. Her eyes are shipwrecks in Lake Michigan. Francis masturbates in their bed as Sarah butchers low-fi indie pop. He decides not to leave their bed. He decides he is Lake Michigan. Sarah dips her toes into his shore. She breathes under his water and decides her neck has gills. While Sarah is underwater she builds churches, meets Elvis and buys insurance from great white sharks. Sarah emerges to kiss each of Francis’s toes. She tells him I have been baptized in menthol cigarettes, pennies and slot machines.
how they forget to water the plantsSarah flashes her clavicles to hungry stockbrokers. They yell stork legs, while fingering their five hundred dollar silk pants. Francis manages a bookie’s office. The bookie smokes chunks of plaster wall and mumbles my keyboard is on fire– ants, ants are everywhere. Francis displays small paintings of bicycle tires inside Sarah’s left ear. Sarah moonlights as a movie critic using the alias Leonard Maltin. When their heating bill is past due, Francis and Sarah record themselves fucking. They sell the video as an instruction manual on how to cure Aspergers Syndrome.how they talk with ghostsFrancis sculpts Sarah’s ankles with orange peels. Sarah thinks her most attractive features are her ankles and her laugh. Francis can’t draw her laughter but he says I will sketch pigeons as they flurry from your mouth. Sarah paints every door of their 1997 Ford Escort a different color. The rear driver door becomes a monument to Nas. Think graffiti and Uzis and black plastic and cigar guts. Think sharp pinky fingers. Francis and Sarah rattle a spray paint can. The ball inside chops off zombies’ heads, but not in the way you might think. It leaves the heads draped over telephone wires like so many Converse. The spray paint ball reveals itself to be a masterpiece on the rims of each tire: Francis and Sarah inside Urban Outfitters, building small deer.how they are an island in the sunThere is electric guitar fuzz on my face, you can’t really call it a beard, Francis says. And on the seventh day God created power pop, Sarah says. They listen to the entire Weezer discography while Sarah shaves Francis’s guitar fuzz. When his face is brand new, Francis talks to the rain. He watches James Bond movies in an empty theater. He dances with Sarah on their ceiling and they defend The Green Album. Francis and Sarah fuck every time Rivers sings about heartache. They fuck a lot. Francis comes as three chord anthems tickle Sarah’s neck. He says I will crush your pretty toenails into a thousand pieces. Sarah responds let’s sew our pants together.how they go to an a.a. meetingFrancis and Sarah move pixilated characters around a black and white screen. The pixels jump over gorges, rescue kittens and always make it home for dinner. Francis types c++ into their computer and the pixels begin to drink. Candle wax slides from their mouths. Sarah is turned on, she hides behind a Yellow Cab and touches herself. The pixels watch and drink and feel sorry for watching and drinking. By the time Sarah comes, the pixels have checked themselves into a hospital. Francis pawns his rosary beads to pay for the pixel’s medical bills. Minutes later, Francis and Sarah reminisce about the pixels and say they were bent carbon, dumb luck, a very small lake.
David Greenspan
davidgreenspan.blogspot.com
Seeking the Elusive Flower
Steven Crist