the monster we got

we sat up
as shouts
poured through slats
in our boarded-up walls

dunking rag-wrapped
boards in kerosene
we lit
up the hill

where,
under torches
of those arrived
before

the creature, boils 

steaming
like fumaroles,
blue lips smacking, 

eyes hallucination wide,

huddled in the glow

and, we
each of us
scratching our nuts

’til, billy
shook a mcdonald’s bag
and, we shook mcdonald’s bags

and ketchup-
n-barbecue-crusted 

napkins
we took, and

each of us, licking
coated
the creature
burn-victim-tight

hefting its
enormous body
soft, light like 

napkins

onto shoulders,
torches
lean-to’ing the other

stepped upon
crushing, 

dodge rams and subarus
trying to show

what stand-up
-guys, and stand-up
-girls, we were

and,
motorists
crawled on hoods
clapping

some
had sex
as we passed

the museum guards
wept, laid
rifles on the tile
before us

gods amongst men
loft, strung this
now-docile
resembling-a-plastic-toy

monster
like a model airplane

from the ceiling

asian tourists
flocked in groups of 20 and 30
in instagram poses
as it rotated, slowly

circling like something
promising never to go away

somewhere, overhead
a song comes through

fainter and fainter