“Beavis & Butthead Do English Class: Guest Starring the Memory of John Ashbery in a Thought Bubble Floating over Instructor Bodaggit’s Fedora” by Tom Kelly
Beavis, like, bangs his head against the desk
because the four-eyed fart-knocker by the podium
forgot to button the bottom of his shirt,
so when he blabs, his exposed belly does that thing
where it jiggles like grandma’s gelatin mold
& I say his navel looks like the Sarlacc Pit
but Beavis says it looks like the hole in a Krispy Kreme donut
but I say it looks like a nook where Beavis can stick his snout
but we agree that if we squint real hard,
it, like, uh, morphs into a second-mouth…or something…
except it can’t eat nachos & won’t shut up about some dude
who snapped a picture of his butt-cheeks in a funhouse mirror
& I’m like, Hey Beavis did the teacher just say…Ass-berry?
but, Beavis, he’s like, he…hehehe…he called someone Ass-berry
& Instructor Bodaggit’s belly-button hunkers up close
& juts out like it wants to join our imaginary band
so, I’m like, I bet Ass-berry never played guitar in outer space
& Beavis is like, I bet he never smoked DMT on a submarine
but, uh, it doesn’t even wobble to show that it’s listening
& I’m like, why are smart people so fucking stupid?
*
Tom Kelly is a Creative Writing doctoral student at Florida State University. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Old Dominion University and his poems appear or are forthcoming in Passages North, Barrelhouse, Hobart, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and other journals.
© LIT Magazine Issue #33, 2019
