Chris Tusa Poems

My grandmother’s teeth stare at her
from a mason jar on the nightstand.

The radio turns itself on,
...

Deep in the cotton petals of a watermark
I see my father stacking sheets of plywood,

his hands freckled with sawdust, his silvery
...

Divine and white,
you’re an aspirin fit for the gods,
the powdery ghost of Gandhi
conjured into a bottle,
...

Only three days and already I loathe this place,
this milk-white morgue, this smiling slaughterhouse,
where girls in straitjackets grow fat on pills,
floating on pale clouds of Clozapine,
...

A sudden surge of boys
with their smiles punched out,
care of a local Tough Man contest.
It was all I needed
...

Like a trick
you crawled up Hitler's sleeve,
a crooked cross with bent arms,
two cursed S's twisted together
...

Once a favorite conversation piece,
now something more like a disease.

A weathervane sings, a wind chime clangs.
...

after Sue Owen

Born from flour anointed with oil,
from a roux dark and mean as a horse’s breath,
...

Maybe it’s Emphysema, a shiny black jewel of phlegm
humming like a clump of bees in my chest.
Perhaps a tumor crawling in the crook of my armpit,
a blood clot opening like a tiny red flower in my brain.
...

The schizophrenic girl twists off a turkey leg
then scoops a spoon-full of corn onto her plate.

Her hair is a black brain of braids,
...