J o e M i l a z z o —

Plain Language 

Curfew transmutes the parks into monumental sponges. Each cavity is a body prodded by rustling mallsoft. I lose myself in ropy urawaza awaiting the next semibreve. The crocuses I’m transporting undress my fingers and deem them underwhelming thorns. n + half a star is the whole of slander. Even the wispiest tentpoles swagger. Even the swankiest bedposts toady. An infographic grouses about my circumspection while a dashboard coos to my serotonin. Blousy legs swish antiseptic grapeade in the loosening brume. As far as forms go, happenstance keeps the grounds osmotic with a seething ennui.

Plain Language 

Suppose I holed up inside a litany of my affordances.  Fathering similes. A radio whose heart beats out Coca-Cola  pejoratives. A bouquet’s whorled collarbones. Persimmons,  bloodshot. A blade’s vacillations. So very many hems.  Outside, the piazza and the steppe will grapple over minute  hands. I can still hear the carolers assuring me slabs will  lattice given enough foreshadowing. October, take me to  pastures albino, whittled, veined with shores. Myrrh, be as a  tare or be imprisoned in the most dumbstruck of a swineherd’s  toys.

Plain Language 

Ships sail. The urgency is serpentine. A phased undoing: the petite wad I take away from each of my appointments. Ones and zeroes, gauche and pronged, sire an unburnt afterglow. The cedar chest I carry in my groin smuggles splenetic must. The mahogany wardrobe weighing on my vagus nerve foleys a ham-fisted four-in-hand with hell house groaners. A down in the mouth miracle understudies for a simple agreement. Lemonade pelts swampily. Foreseeably, I look to remain uncountable firmwares in arrears.

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