Why can’t we have nice things?

Platinum skin welded
surgically thin
stapled taffeta eye marbles
thick, pelvic webby
upholstery       on the sofa, let’s do it
on the sofa in the store
Memory   foam.

Bolt-flint squirrels,
we stockpile. Conveyor
transportation,
gun-mother make me   more.
Why can’t we have
the platypus, why can’t we have
baby bump? Please correctly adjust the
shelving units. We have nice
polyurethane, punch-me-in-the-face
deodorant things, we can build her,
we have the mâchénery!

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Lina ramona Vitkauskas (Lithuanian-American-Canadian, b. 1973) is the author of five poetry books/chapbooks: A Neon Tryst (Shearsman Books, 2013); HONEY IS A SHE (Plastique Press, 2012); THE RANGE OF YOUR AMAZING NOTHING (Ravenna Press, 2010); Failed Star Spawns Planet/Star (dancing girl press, 2006); and Shooting Dead Films with Poets (Fractal Edge Press, 2004). In 2009, she was selected by Pulitzer-finalist Brenda Hillman for The Poetry Center of Chicago’s Juried Reading Award, and nominated by Another Chicago Magazine for an Illinois Arts Council Award.  Publications include Coconut, Requited, DIAGRAM, TriQuarterly, The Chicago Review, The Toronto Quarterly, VLAK (Ed. Louis Armand, Edmund Berrigan), The Prague Literary Review, White Fungus (Taiwan; recently displayed at MoMA), and more.