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Timothy Liu: Ode To The Garden State

May 16, 2011 by PBQ

Chockfull O’Nuts mixing in with Elizabeth’s sulfuric Southerly breeze
as a groom badly bruises both of his shins on a turnstile-hop mishap

trying to catch a commuter train instead of bedding down his bride
on hay suffused with camel piss from God knows where and insects

from Peru crushed by the tens of thousands to color her grapefruit drink
designed at the flavor factory just off the Jersey Pike—volatile gasses

creeping on past the olfactory epithelium as methyl butanoic acids
eat away at workers testing lipstick and cans of cupcake frosting cut

from the same titanium dioxide stock—gas chromatographs and one-
part-per-billion head-space vapor analyzers synthesizing national taste.

Filed Under: Contributors 70, Issue 70, Poetry, Poetry 70 Tagged With: Contributors 70, Poetry, Poetry 70, Timothy Liu

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