Sneeze Shield at the Dust Buffet

I Remember You Said It Like This

by Erika
The joke was about
two young doctors entombed in an opium den –
One of them chokes on ice
and one of them mounts a horse naked –
a mottled Appaloosa with pretty hair.
You love that part.

It wasn’t wildly funny,
it was maybe just your voice,
the way it went up a notch –
piquant and deliberate
and about to split.

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We Stay on the Trail
by Stephanie

We are listening to the Pet Shop Boys,
you lounging plumply on your Appaloosa,
and I on my Paint.
A deliberate yank of the reins,
and we squeak leather against leather, curling up the trail,
another notch up past the tree line.
Hooves brush unknowing against poppy buds,
their sultry layers of electric petals sit dewy and ready to shock,
their entombed opium laughs at how we look from so far below.
Soil smears on poly-cotton blend: piquant, wet, dark.

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Tim Gunn

by Evelyn

Tim Gunn says
‘this will never
work, you have
to lose that
acrylic Appaloosa
it’s hideous. Make
a notch and entomb
it in silk just get it
out of here it
reminds me of
cowboys and that
look’s so deliberate
and overdone
like that brand
Piquant Opium.’

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prelude to the purchase of opium

by Adam

some jonesing cowpoke moseys up to the bar
saloon doors swinging behind ‘em entomb
the appaloosa he rode in on

furtively surveys the dim room
deliberate glances into the dimmest notch
to see a man about a horse

procures a beer and retires to a table
near a darkened corner opposite
bent like a beaten dead horse

a brief exchange with the guy at the table
he gets up wearing a big waxy coat
they make like trees and leave into the piquant evening

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Untitled

by Abby

We pass exit 387B, Tulsa business loop

and I run my fingers absentmindedly over the notches in the AC vent, entombed in the passenger seat.

You sit behind the wheel for the eternity of another four states.

You guessed the last word in eighteen questions. It was opium.

I put in a cd to fill the air for another 100 miles, it was the black and white one.

Several songs in, you ask why he named it Appaloosa, and give me a piquant glance.

I give back a deliberate little chuckle before i realize it wasn’t a joke.

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The Ivory buck

By Carla

tsing, tsing, tsing  bright and sharp sound
punctuating a street filled with deliberate speed
and grace - bright tall china air ladies twirl creating swaths of sex, color
very controlled easy to read the message - easy to tell the story

piquant pikachus pirouette
richly notched wood rests ready to be rubbed by the smooth hands of streetvendors
this is too easy - is it a dream

sweet smells rest on the ground and opium is my middle mane
appaloosa rugs clap once returning, entombing me in silence