old lumps

1
can you draw me a new face, and slip yolks into my mouth? the old ones are broken. the old lump in the bed drags itself outside in the morning and pulls on my chain. scruffed. it stays close, stretches my face over its lumpy head. “you have to go deeper than that,” she says quietly to the lump. it just slumps about, props itself against pillars, and smokes. and smokes. did she seem happy to you? he forgets the last minute thoughts, strange noises across the alley. when the lump comes home, very late at night, it slips in the back door, stumbles through the dark, over heaps of laundry. it doesn’t bring flowers. it just quietly opens the refrigerator and bites holes in all of the eggs. by morning they are all rotten, my yolks dripping down to the floor, until i have nothing to say. the words come out all slurred. the lump writes a half-shod song in my name, smokes again. yes, well, thank you for that.

2
that’s the lump in the chair, not him. its spiny fingers crawl across the keys while no one is listening. on an old city street in the east, he was still laying under a bridge next to his broken machine. they both have their place, i think. they pulled up the lump, dusted it off, drove it to the hospital. they turned on the light in its body and found no broken bones (no bones at all in fact). him still back there. she fell in love with the interesting lump. he crawled all the way home and snuck into bed, stayed there, while the lump went about his business. pi-chat. there was something else he wanted to say. now she’s confused, naturally. who writes the poems? who rides which? which one works at village? the lump doesn’t care for all those cables and teeth. “a self-made man,” his wheel started to wobble. propped it up in the basement and sent the lump out again. he’s sleeping. the lump cracks his eggs and sleeps too.