Cooking

A couple decades of basil

silent, unbounded

will soothe misanthropy’s scathe

Come on over

where the plastic wrap dances

like fumes of napalmed garlic

through your lungs

Skyscrapers worth my children

Weapons worth the last

mammalian hair on earth

Weep now weep later

Weep for the scent of pedantry

and the maimed sparseness which ensues

Weep like eight billion

abandoned tractortrailers

or a frying pan in wait

to marry another warhead

PJ Lombardo is a writer from New Jersey. He serves as co-founding editor of GROTTO, a journal of grotesque-surrealist poetry. HATE, DANCE, his first chapbook, was made available in June 2024. Read his work in WORLD HUNGER, Tripwire, SARKA, Lana Turner Journal, the Brooklyn Rail and elsewhere.