TBQH

To be quite honest

If we want to make art, yet look for money to spring up in its place

Who will have extra lettuce but the bombers, artillery manufacturers, oat milk saboteurs?

Poems will have to remain garlands and garnish, the older ones our menu

Taco Bell Questions:

The ultimate capsule wardrobe, sour cream, cheese, beans, tomato, warm iceberg.

An interlude made of corn, queen of grasses.

Pulling up to the drive thru, kinglike, to give an order. 

The line slow, parking, turning off the lights.

Mistaking dilemma for power. Modifying from a place of desire.

Rindfleisch von unten, Frühlingszwiebeln von oben.

Mutual aid is not a replacement for a functional state.

You underestimate how high the prices will go.

We’re stalling due to this unbelievable amount of leftover food to be shared.

When the truckers stop and the flight control operators also stop, the chips and guac stop.

We can visit on the porch masked while grandma makes faces at you through the window.

Don’t forget how to pile onto a fountain and fly a flag from the top.

Pull up until you receive what you had wanted. Never stop asking

is it the window of paying or the window of receiving the order—

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Cynthia Arrieu-King has written four volumes of poetry, the most recent being Futureless Languages (Radiator Press 2018) and Continuity (Octopus Books 2021). Her poems appear in American Poetry Review, BOMB Magazine, the Tiny, Triquarterly and others. She’s working on a collection of short stories and divides her time between Philadelphia and Louisville. cynthiaarrieuking.blogspot.com she/they