Portrait of the artist speaking Viking

She did what we have all threatened to—I’ll beat
xxxxmy head against this windshield, just

watch me! I spotted the woman, parallel parking
xxxxwith gas-guzzlers honking, shrilling shut

up! shut up! I can’t fit! just before her forehead burst
xxxxopen. The smear on the windshield—

a Viking might have named it rage-blossom. And who
xxxxhasn’t picked this blossom to pieces? Petal

after petal, the world loves me, the world loves me
xxxxnot. We all gaped at the bloody glass, in

thrall to her rage, in thrall to the Vikings who
xxxxburied their dead under the weight of

mouth-snakes, within the language of the still-
xxxxliving. Our anger was their word for

grief and here’s where grief will get you: when
xxxxthe Viking queen’s lover died, she killed

herself as well as two hawks, five slaves, eight
xxxxmaids, four men, and her three-

year-old son. One serf, offered a spot on
xxxxthe pyre, said, let the hall-servants achieve

such honor, honor, of course, meaning just
xxxxa good name. There’s a good name for

everything: this sky-candle setting, these fender-
xxxxbenders proliferating, even my own road-

rage. I’ll slash the neighbors, stick it to that brown-
xxxxnoser, sack the supply closet, burn that

paper-pusher alive. Some afternoons on the auto-
xxxxsea, I plunder kennings and some afternoons

I am keening heart-sore too: I don’t fit. Some
xxxxafternoons I speak Viking. I pick

a blossom to pieces.