Work Day                                                                        —Randall Mann


Alarm

Red Bull and pomade

Big Pharma bus

Settle

I bet someone’s having an affair

Riveting

Create alternative bus to get through this

Filled with redheads

Accommodating ones

And gummy bears

And fullbacks

And killable STDs

And I win all the prizes

Not just the gay ones

And sex with Montgomery Clift

Before the accident

At the staff meeting now

White people

Fresh acronyms

Didn't get the job at FU

Big Pharma is better

Google self

Jerk off in the big stall

What

This may be it

Straighten piles

Way better

Maybe

Even after the accident



Catwalk


You have before
you one
splattered
fur;

dry ice
and a sewer grate;
the crawl
of lice;

cap
to the side,
like a slap;
and all

the stays
you can burn.
This town.
What would Karl

Lagerfeld do?
Vampirize.
Time to borrow
a Marlboro;

time for snacks,
Tic Tacs
and hello
yellow

meth-
mouth.
In the light,
mince.

As they
say,
The problem is
is that.

Sequins
on a gown.
There are
eras

left on the clock.
It will get
a little hard
to take.

(The
rage.)
And don’t forget
to rake

every brown-
tipped
prophylactic
on the catwalk.


photo: Josh Koll

photo: Josh Koll

Randall Mann lives in San Francisco. Diode Editions recently published his first book of criticism, The Illusion of Intimacy: On Poetry. His fifth collection of poems, A Better Life, is forthcoming from Persea Books in April 2021.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2019