Pacing around my house, laughing

and crying at the same time, this is

the closest I’ve ever achieved at doing

both together, it’s a Frankie sort of verb,

laughingcrying, and an ice cube is dripping

off my face and onto my sweatshirt and

leaving little puddles as I walk around and

O Caity Baptiste I need you now! This

is going to be a cyborg of a cold sore it’s

gonna be full-on one-sided Botox of the

lip it’s gonna stun all your med schoolies

into silenced awe it’s gonna make y’all

reassess your medical vocations, it’s won

the Golden Globe for Most Likely To Make

You Not Wanna Disrobe Me, it’s the best

and worst thing my body’s done all week,

it’s making me laugh then cry then repeat,

a crunching of the face where I get those

creases round the nose (the face Jen loves

to try to do) and then laughing looking

out the window as the dapper drug dealer

in his white fedora walks by with the dog

-owning homeless addicts and the ice is for

the lip because Lorelei Frantz (of the Blue

Camel Café, of ginger peach tea and my

employment) told me that’s how you burn

a coldsore away, you ice it out, you decide It

Is Not There, you chill it freeze it drip it all

around the house is what I’m doing, a messy

sort of process but somehow worth a poem,

Please come to the sideyard reading on Friday

at 7pm! and see for yourself the evidence! of

me attempting everything at once, of trying

to get everything right the first time around,

the proof is on my lip, it’s a mountainrange

of dripping sickness but wait it’s not so bad

in profile in fact it kind of makes me feel

voluptuous and I hey, NEVER feel voluptuous