beef jerky

8/29/19 1125PM

the last days of summer are always like

beef jerky

tougher than your old, wrinkled leather moccasins

hotter than your tires screeching as you daze off in traffic

i find myself sitting with smoke in my eye

dying to find out my end

whether it’s around that copse of skeletal pines

or simply bubbling up inside

so you mount a pumping well

all shifting and grinding machinery

pulling that beef jerky out of your feet

it’s salt

all sodium, little bit of protein

but mostly salt

and the salinity leaks into my heart

which has been so wishy washy

that it explodes like lithium

maybe if you eat enough beef jerky

you’ll grow a new heart

made of leather