FANZINE

Wastoid

A lover persists long after death because every lover has many ears. Most lovers have ten ears, though some are only buds while the lover is alive & they bloom after the lover is dead, sometimes years after the lover is dead. The ear is a symbol of change. In folktales when one finds an ear on the road one is suddenly holding a hand-written letter from Erasmus Darwin, one turns on the shower & a thousand ears spurt out & one steps into this shower & one is in the city of Chicago. But tradition differs from practical investment: ten children can find more vials of blood than six can. When the first ear blooms from the grave it is a happy occasion. But by the tenth the groundskeeper on the riding lawnmower doesn’t even bother to swerve.

Wastoid

A man fell in love with a bomb. The bomb was strapped to an another man’s chest & the man grew jealous. The other man carried the bomb into a busy street & detonated it. Many people died & many cars were damaged. After the police left the scene the man went to the busy street & searched for pieces of the bomb. He was happy the other man was gone but unhappy that the bomb was no longer a bomb. He collected pieces of shrapnel that may have been from the bomb. He collected footage of the bomb exploding. He sat on his blue futon & watched the footage on repeat, stroking the sharp shrapnel until his fingers felt like sponges.

Wastoid

The poet is in bliss because he might die at any moment & he can imagine an object. He can imagine a bereaved widower & an orphaned boy, but then he can imagine them holding an object. He could have a husband & have a boy & then have an object. The object will never be destroyed by death. Hoarding is a way of squandering. The poet also has an extraneous rib that he has not revealed to anyone, but there is not much to say about it, actually.

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_{Mathias Svalina is the author of three books, most recently The Explosions from Subito Press. With Alisa Heinzman, Hajara Quinn & Zachary Schomburg he co-edits Octopus Books. Big Lucks will release his book Wastoid in 2014.}

_{Fanzine’s series editor for Fall 2013 is Ella Longpre.}