Criteria

Criteria for establishing criteria in
the judgement of
criteria— fuck it all to
Indiana.

What I value greater
is my mother's Princess Diana
commemorative plate—
the infomercial commemoration
of pathos and

fresh towels for a hot shower
in a mansion of grandparent comfort
that no longer
receives the lotto
results.

In the porn star's right eye
you saw flash
a bad review for your
latest record
and a recent post
with zero
likes.

You rate the performance
by monstrous systems
performing
embarrassingly, themselves.

What I value greater
is my father groaning to sleep
above the racket
of enjoyable sitcoms
universally hated
and therefore miraculously exempt
from critique
and ding-dong contempt.

Defanged are the darlings.

Glorious are my cousin's orthodontics
transported to my Trapper Keeper
mouth.

I followed the red carpet into autumn
and in the urine musk terminus
of its unraveling
I played empty Cool Whip tubs
like babies
on the basement drums
daddy hid away.

On the red carpet grave
I stripped to my naked layer
of snappy elastic bands
in the candy corn of staunch
October
and plucked at the abundance of
my own flesh
with fingers and thumbs meeting
like beaks.

And by their criteria
my teeth are sliding back tectonically and
the blues of my particular Catholic school
uniform are unbecoming
and they called my mother overweight
and over-made-up
and my father underpaid
and my nasality harsh
and my toenails self-bitten

but according to the criteria
for establishing criteria in
the judgment of
criteria

their invisibility was located by
halitosis

and in the joy of my brand new
perfect
autumn day
the gauge is well-broken.