by Talia Rizzo

On Easter, a gay man from Berlin comes to play the xylophone   red and purple keys scattered across the carpet. A science room skeleton sitting beside him    plastic bones draped around his fingers   a fleck of red paint on ribs. Someone pierces my ear with a sterilized needle and an apple slice.  The juice drips down the nape of my neck.     I ask a girl if she’ll lick it off.     A dog whines.   She says, that shit was sour.     Blood eclipsing my left lobe.   In the corner,         there is a canvas with the oil lines of a man who is my father    but not my father.    The easter bunny hides in the closet,    too busy cracking open the eggs.