If Lamberto Bava’s Demons was about people watching a movie about demons and then becoming demons, themselves, and if I watched Demons and watched people turn into demons after watching a movie about demons, and if I finished a box of a dozen doughnuts within 24 hours by slicing a jelly doughnut in half and using the knife to scoop the raspberry filling into the sink, wiping the red gunk (a glob the size of my thumb) against the metal ring surrounding the drain and turning on the faucet to wash it away into the disposal, and if my heels are growing bone spurs and my blood is pumping faster because I’m frustrated with your voice keeping me from thinking, then when will my pus bubble burst and when will my teeth and nails grow and when will my mouth fall on someone the way it falls on doughnuts I never even wanted to eat. Over the next year, I plan to eat many things.
I will eat a large balloon, popped in my teeth.
I will eat a small balloon, unpopped and swallowed.
I will eat part of a cardboard box, not a pizza box, although
I will most certainly eat many pizzas, secretly and in one sitting.
I will eat the ‘I’ key on my keyboard because I will be ashamed because
I will have eaten part of a spare tire I found in a vacant lot near my house.
I will eat half a gallon of ice cream and watch how my stomach rounds into a scoop.
I will eat part of Georgia (I have already eaten part of Texas, years ago) and not sand.
I will eat a watermelon seed and grow it until I can remove it surgically and then
I will eat it unwashed from a hospital bed covered in delicious cotton sheets.
I will eat the grass along the highway until I make it as far north as Boston.
I will eat the gravel thrown by cars back down 95 until I make it home.
I will eat our welcome mat. I will eat our cat’s hair from the carpet.
I will eat the legs of our IKEA chairs. I will eat the lamp shades.
I will eat the parts of your thighs you grab and pull at.
I will eat the insurance claim you will ask me to mail.
I will eat the postbox and mailman and dog chasing.
I will eat sharp things I hope will not pop me. On the table in the diner
a triangle paper placard
golden malted waffle
and I wanted so badly
to order this waffle
and because I’d had
oreo pancakes last time
but it was an advertisement
only the waffle mix not even
a waffle available on menu
later I order a three-cheese
stuffed crust pizza on half
price through an online deal
and I watch Fulci movies
back to back to back and
the bacon on the pizza
was like the feet of snails
and my stomach was full
of ginger ale and water
and cheese and I feel
the roundness of my growing
belly and I press into it
with two fingers over two
fingers only wanting some
version of a waffle and
my skin is waffle colored
anyway but I did not
press hard enough and
besides I saw a girl
throw up her intestines
just sitting in her car
and looking someone
straight in the eye
and the blood from her
eyes was the color
of pizza sauce. This
is the first you hear of this.


Ryan Clark writes his poems using a unique method of homophonic translation. He is the author of Arizona SB 1070: An Act (Downstate Legacies) and How I Pitched the First Curve (Lit Fest Press), as well as the forthcoming chapbook Suppose / a Presence (Action, Spectacle), and his poetry has appeared in such journals as DIAGRAM, Interim, The Offing, and SRPR. He earned his MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University as well as a PhD in English Studies from Illinois State University. He now lives in North Carolina, where he teaches English at UNC School of the Arts.