A Comic Strip Just Out of Rehab
Maurice Oliver

The musical-comedy stars a taco eating the alphabet backwards—

but in the abridged version opus is a Gregorian chant riding shotgun
and Dolly Parton is the chest of drawers stuffed with landmines.

Oregon is curdled milk and Eden wears an ankle bracelet. Dr. Seuss
is our in-flight pilot with only a vagina for atmosphere. The Holy Ghost

terrorizes a boarding school. The tollkeeper is a Roman manhole
swirled in egret’s hair. “I used to be a nice guy,” says the blackboard

chalk, but everyone knows it’s always been a streaker. Personally, I
think the whole world is just an elaborate alibi. Comic strips are the

only thing worth reading or an ordinary laundress makes the best
stapled stomachs. Lithuania has always preferred to sleep in the nude.

So whether we understand a word of what the wretched god says or not
we still should triple our inebriate if we want to conserve energy. And

try to erase the election of divine iniquity, why don’t you. Otherwise,
we’ll be left with no choice but to watch the Neapolitan ice cream

drip down one side of the dinette’s chin and into its goatee without so
much as a clue of why the stutterer insists on drinking from a Dixie cup.