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Kicking & Screaming

I know what's beneath your shirt,
what lies within your jeans:

Thighs like thunder storms.
We talk at Denny's over French toast

about how you want to lose weight and get your teeth fixed
before even thinking about a serious relationship.

You want to change your life with liposuction,
hold bake sales for cosmetic surgery.

But I don't want a supermodel,
don't need a man from a Nordic Trac commercial.

Give me nests of back hair
and love handles of steel.

I'll take the blemishes
and beauty marks.

Fuck the air brushed biceps
from a fashion magazine.

I don't need a man with a rock hard ass.
I'll take the onion breath if it's all the same to you.

I love the way your eyebrows
come together like star crossed lovers.

The cleft in your chin,
the sofa you threw out

before your wife served you with divorce papers.
Say what you want.

Cut me with curse words
sharp as steak knives.

Tell me you don't like this poem.
Complain to your Wednesday

night friends about me
over coke and pepperoni pizza.

Don't just stand there,
look at me when I'm talking to you,

when I'm kicking and screaming
on your living-room floor.

I'll think of the hair dipped in Clairol,
your astronomical stomach,

the cleft chin and smelly socks
on an otherwise grotesque sofa

and wonder what makes you
so special for 33 love poems.

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