LIMPING

Sunbathing where the dogs slouch
where lightheadedness,

sudden and everywhere,
heats visions on the park again
where once i fell into the ribs
where my children scatter their knifings
about now
in ingrown time

Catch the mist that rises
out each last
solitary window
split with recollection

Eyes clang
in opposite directions
My optic nerve splits
from its patron, the lowest star

Wistaddled’s the cranium of this afternoon

Nearly remembered
and almost forgot
how those dogs sang in the sun
until every spine limped

I LOVE BASEBALL

check her out in early autumn
hook my wretched neck back
sore as a loss
of irrecoverable muscle Above
the sky’s pitched round
like we’re inside a blue pearl
her & i watching baseball
She drives zealous to the right
and plants some purple in my eye
like a hypnotism that wastes
eighty years irrecoverable
If any living quiverer
might like to hide from us
Good luck building a bunker
that won’t mildew
blue Her steroids dole arrhythmia
in the sunlight we baked for you

PJ Lombardo is a writer from New Jersey. He earned an MFA from the University of Notre Dame. Previously, he worked as a publishing assistant for Action books, and he currently serves as co-founding editor of GROTTO, a journal of grotesque-surrealist poetry. Read his writing in KEITH LLC, Mercury Firs, Tripwire Journal, Lana Turner Journal and elsewhere.