Unholy Coil

Wondering whether or not to try my hand at AI-generated slop, I type

random nouns into Claude’s chat bar: umbrella, cupola, bacon, bitch,

petrichor, Dickinson, yin, and wing, followed by a ridiculous prompt:

“Use these words to create a surrealist and sad poem with zero hope,”

but before pushing Enter, some decent part of me questions the root of

my ghoulish desire for a poem with extra thumbs and too many teeth,

begs whether the sin of squandered time stems from my cosmic disgust

with the enshitification of everything, suggests instead to fry some bacon,

so I crack the kitchen window, happy the two week drought is done,

the smell of fresh rain warm and mineral, inexplicably female,

and spy my cat crouched under hosta, his tail swishing low

meaning some cute thing will soon be disemboweled and headless

which dries up my want for bacon but wets my want for a poem,

fat raindrops thupping hosta making me think of bubble umbrellas,

transparent domes you can stand under to watch the word thup slide

down a plastic panel that will - eventually - reverse rain back to cloud,

umbrellas like hollowed tears, allowing eyes to look upward at downpours,

allowing you to spot Emily Dickinson, nimbus in the windowed cupola,

her grief pouring forth to widen the puddles at your feet that reflect

your dumb face looking up at your dumb face looking down,

but as you know, too much of one thing is too much of that thing,

yin so dense it collapses inward, flips and begins to burn, a city of umbrellas

springing from fists to fill the sky, rain boots melting into cherry wax,

elbows sprouting the feathered wings needed to survive the infinite suck -

and no matter what, up there or down here, with you or without,

no single thing loves regardless, or unconditionally (bitch, please)

and so it’s up to you, entirely, to crisp the bacon how you want it,

to refuse to the let the flood of slop inspire slop, slop from slop,

to stop crying over the grease fire, smoke overpowering petrichor,

moving on her like a bitch, and to know your sweet pussy’s sacrifice

for what it is - a love offering of shit smear, wingless but alive -

or you could push Enter, the poem bleeding ink until it dies.