This Is Fucking Delicious

Ants line up for a single lick of a lollipop.

Locked in my home I don’t need to hunt for food.

Downtown Los Angeles is empty skyscrapers.

Open their windows and they become really big flutes.

The wind sings its way through them.

Right to the tents that line the streets.

Lined up like ants.

The melody is of sirens. Of people.

The Governor says we should stay at home.

Home is where the heart dies.

I think I ate too much tonight.

I have opened my window.

I am waiting for a mouth to come along.

One big enough to place its mouth on my flutes.

The city’s song changes when we finger the holes.

The moans and wails.

I say No, sorry, I don’t have any money.

I say Have a good night.

I buy a burrito. It is fucking delicious.

It is fucking delicious.

I’d line up to lick a lollipop, too.

If it just suddenly fell from the sky.

 
Kien Lam

Kien Lam is the author of Extinction Theory (University of Georgia Press, 2022), winner of the National Poetry Series. He is a Kundiman fellow and received his MFA from Indiana University. He lives in Los Angeles where he writes about professional video game players.

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Having Never Visited the Ghent Altarpiece