pittsburgh o

Calvin: I wonder where we go when we die.

Hobbes: Pittsburgh?

    Bill Watterson, 19 December 1985

pittsburgh, o spidered—like

mars!—with canals, running

carb'nated milks of the moon—

where specters

don isinglass snorkels

and dance upon tensionless

quicksilver spumes—out in

pittsburgh, the stars

jungle up through the dark

like skin of white grapes

packed with light—but sweeter than

grapes to the teeth

and the throat,

and seeded with peridot

bright—lo! pittsburgh! lo!

bare-skulled they blow tripletime

out of sousaphone-socketed eyes—

jaws creak with cigars

and phalanges do snap

to that voodoo that

smoulders and flies—

and the swinging moon

flips like a disc—

          o!

—ball and hysterically blinks

with surprise—pittsburgh!

each rooftop bends,

licks at the next

till the street comes

to shake with

their thrusts—

such music uncreases bones

musty and dry

till the dead—o the dead o

the dead—o th

e dead o

the dead

o the dead

re

  mem

            ber

       lust