Gregory Sherl

The Oregon Trail is a lonely place to die from syphilis

I am cowering in the corner of a corner, the halo
so bright I’m like holy shit I can see through my
fingers, holy shit I can see through penance, holy
shit holy shit burning like a heated aerosol can.
We always ford the river, but today child #2,
Wendy, can’t stomach the gummas that have balled
over my earlobes. Love me I say. Love me I whisper.
Love me I carve into the side of my least favorite ox.
I am a brilliant button without any cloth. The rabbits
are rabid. The bears are rabid. The deer are rabid.
Tell me why they walk with antlers on fire. Tell me
why the banker from Boston starts the trail with
twelve hundred dollars more than the farmer
from Illinois. Does he not touch his wife with two
hands? I am not rich but I touch everything worth
touching twice. My syphilis is a hole in the side
of the earth, is a note to ex-lovers: don’t ford
the river alone, is a used pair of overalls I trade
to a carpenter from Ohio for 22 rusted bullets.
When you come home I whisper words I never
learned in your ear. Baby, you are the last shot
of penicillin.

The Oregon Trail is in my iPhone

& you, dear, are the longest goodbye.
We always ford the river, but today
the river takes you like I did that night.
You know the night I’m crushing on,
maybe, or I should tell it now, watch your
cheeks light like the slightest explosion in the sky,
or more importantly, like a bullet leaving
its shell, its home now a new home, now
a warmer home. The Oregon Trail is dizzying,
putrid smoke, a ghost story we tell between
the cracks of ribs in our ribs, before the dysentery
steeps our bowels. Your lungs are the second
runner up in the chili cook-off behind my
temporal lobe. Right now my iPhone is in
my pocket, next to a couple quarters I hate
to touch, because money is the dirtiest thing.
You are dirty until I soak your pores in a barrel,
disillusioned light through blinds that haven’t
been created yet.