Annalynn Hammond

 

Maybe It’s the Guacamole

Turned brown 3 seconds after I mashed it,
that fat warm smell like the squirrel I found
in our trashcan. Or maybe it’s this hot city
hell that won’t let sticky nightmares fade,
they just hang in the constant heaviness—
last night it was a pigeon, mutilated, nailed
to a dreamy steaming door; today I woke
to find a pan of bones and meat on the porch,
a gift from the neighbors for my dog, but I swear
I’ve seen those flies before. It’s the haze,
the smog, my car swerving onto the rumble strips,
the headache that grows, the death that won’t go
cold. We don’t have an a/c, the beach is closed
because the sewage breeds disease, my husband
just called me a bitch, the streets are dirty and my eyes
are starting to twitch. I’ve lost all faith in the divine—
at 100°F, we’re just swine with sweaty balls.