Amalia Tenuta 

*mwah*

show me your friends a bad speculation
   
             who mandolin thumbs the hard taco shell one shipping containers beach food court

            who hang light’s empty torches from wood walls of sound’s subdivision

             who blow lines of microcredit on dandelions for cotton antennas over cop spas

            who kloylk value upward like hispanically specific wrapping paper
             
                             hhh                            hhhiii        iii              iiisss

           who hear little about festive reunions of extended family while throughout the year flock to company-sponsored
ritual             
                           gatherings

           who tan ethically recalling the prejudice of damette lingaquillanté

           whose nonwork time becomes relationship time & thus eventually work time

           whose tails warm the painted shell of sex

           who say the west invents teenagers

           who say because we continue to ship liposuction equipment the sanctions have failed

show me your lint crepuscles contactless in cooling centers come to the window

oh my gosh

the regime of pure imagination receives sliding scale risograph classes from the local business community


show me your highway fishy tent so you are not just breathing in smoke
            but a maze
            yellow arrows
            like yellow grenades
           a bunch of white guys scream
           oh my gosh
           behind pallets
           tropical plants
           that are a good question
           in twenty years
           cast nets
           like murphy beds
           interview you
           lighting a memorial garden
           car tires
           ti amor
           why was
           ghosts hate
           oh my gosh

despite still enjoying a tall glass of normal tasting water the technical debt & color of barotrauma in your straw it really
grosses
               me out

Aubade


making rabbits huggg
some bug
the bed laundry
above the sock
above the weak croissant
ankles like two sugar gliders
cuffed an amniotic

maybe boredom is the victim of laziness’s narcissistic abuse
maybe the paprika in me is just the work ethic’s puddle
               not rust or acid which removes rust
               but grease & trap
               & tilt nets built to catch frozen meat spilt

these great meals

o they suck the life out of our bones

put me on to windows above which

               gurdlegurdlegurdle

i know you’re not going to work

i know you’re not serving the people

girls haven’t so

what’s a shovel?



Amalia Tenuta is a poet currently living in Minneapolis. She is the author of the chapbook The Primitive Accumulation of Realness (Dead Mall Press 2023).