The Black Napkin Volume 1 Issue 4 | Page 37

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Two Poems by glen armstrong

The Bedside Book of Aggression

You ask if I want a piece of you.

You offer me a baby toe,

a weird dream with owls

and stilt walkers, maybe?

You puff your chest like a bay window.

All of Darwin’s notes

on the local armadillos

would still fail

to explain

this aggression.

If we do this, we have more in common

with the frat boys gathered

in a circle around the fight

than the two homeless guys

to whom they promised

fifty dollars.

We will hold our iPhones steady

as we beat each other

senseless.

We’ll need new thinking on the density

and rate of gathered bodies,

a new definitions of “obscenity”

“alpha male”

“failure.”