The Cento for May 5, 2020

Cento

I.
Not to touch, not to breathe, not to meet,
scissors scraping the face of god.
How many more nights are left before this magic ends?

The plague is taking its tribute,
psychotic serial killer.

II.
This time in the recipe is a lie.
Who spilt the first drop?
Who knows?
Who cares?

III.
Crushed all together in an envelope,
the epicenter of the epicenter of my heart.

It started when they banned plastic bags.

IV.
“Everybody’s gotta get up on stage and do their numba!”
Fiction turned into history.
Time bombs waiting to explode.

I used to cry because I wanted to die,
now I cry because I never want to die,
diving for the finish of another day,
without incident or symptom.

During every First Tuesdays open mic, we communally compose a cento using language taken from each open-mic reader’s offering. This cento is composed of lines from the work of: Zohreh Rastegar, Peter Marra, Lynnette Ostreicher, Marty Levine, Henry Sussman, David Siller, Lydia Chang, Steven Licardi, Norman Stock, Barry Fruchter, Dan Fleshler, Diane Mathis, Patricia Carragon, Francie Scanlon, Bonnie Ellman, Maria Lisella