Damon Hubbs


Keyhole Cover No. 2

you finger through 
     & find nobody eating Bacio gelato 
          on the Spanish Steps

the sun’s peeling yellow cover 
     leaves tourists searching 
          de Chirico shade for tables 
                  
awninged on the Piazza di Spagna.
     Coffee is lavishly choreographed. 
          An ex-lover wears black gloves  
         
& sucks his tongue. The role of spectator 
     taken as seriously as a Louma crane 
          straight razoring perspective. Step
     
back & there are tiers— Father
     Son 
          & Holy Spirit, completed in 1725
                  
& a girl in a Trussardi coat
     arguing with a man who knows too much 
          or nothing at all 

at the bottom of the steps
     a house holds a lock of Keats’ hair 
          “when all the birds are faint with the hot sun.”
 


Yoke and Yardland

girls, arranged by a pool 
the color of Italian liquors
have tan lines arguing flesh 
like marcher lords

the sky is peacock-blue 
and the grey trunked skull palms 
shading wicker chairs lash 
and dembow in the trades 

when the girls arranged by a pool 
talk as dreamily as a wreckage of clouds
they order red drinks 
with swan-shaped straws

salt lime, sugar cane
rash boon waiters in suits of mill 
to and fro the buttery 
squiring dreams of Fontainebleau

the obligation to a yoke 
of midriff, a yardland of thigh
is the spirit of the laws
in the market

and from across the water
we assize, count marks 
pinfold girls by the pool
in ungentle arrangements
 


Smear Campaign

canapé’s smear campaign is bedrock amongst 
the barbacks at the Brook & Forrest Country Club

news arrived of my fluctuating fortune 
from the horse girl with the blond seahorse curls 

my broken-in-cool no longer cool, just broken
a mail-order catalogue in a scene I can’t fit into.

I do not match the color of their neckties or
the roll of their coats, their banded V-neck

sweaters and scuffed perfect penny loafers. 
The cocktail sauce in the black veins of my 

lapel won’t scrub out. I used to strut sitting 
down at the Golden Gate Casino on Fremont

and you had snap in your stirrups too, horse girl
but nobody rides horses anymore —it’s all place 

and show, pin and share. The world has changed
and we’re down market debutantes, old grads 

in need of a charity event. I’ll give you 
a tulip from my tulip glass and we’ll watch 

the ruling class crumhorn canapé —his honey 
colored boat hull lounging and untroubled 

on a crisp, crew cut of beach

Damon Hubbs: Constant gardener, casual birder. Reluctant Aquarian. Recent poems featured in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Apocalypse Confidential, Yellow Mama, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Fevers of the Mind, & Horror Sleaze Trash. Damon's first chapbook, The Day Sharks Walk on Land, will be published by Alien Buddha Press in May.
Twitter: @damon_hubbs

 
 

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