A Few Rumors Concerning Mr. Potato Head
Terrance Hayes

Bet in his diary there are blueprints of his faces. Yep and a little arrow pointing to where his eyeball rolled from the page. Yep, and bounced once on the floor. Bet a diamond glistens in the ear floating in the mason jar on his desk. Bet his collar-bone is made of gold. Bet he's never heard of Mary Shelly— Hell, bet he can only read sheet music! Goddamn, Brother, Prince just changed his name! Doctors say latex is ageless. Doctors say the body is nothing but money. Bet his tongue quivers in a pillbox. Bet his tongue is shy, in debt, and depressed. Bet he sings: Praise be to Edison's light bulb and the scalpel! Bet he sings: Praise be to the nurse maid who sells her womb! Bet he sings: Praise be to hyper realism, hypodermics, John Merrick and the poise of mannequins! Bet it'll be a closed casket in the end. And enough flowers to cover Texas. And a dozen biographies in the first month! Yep, bet no one finds the diary. Bet no one finds the face.

© Terrance Hayes

© Penguin

© Tia Chucha

Terrance Hayes is the author of Hip Logic (Penguin 2002) and Muscular Music (Tia Chucha Press, 1999) and has been the recipient of many honors and awards including a Whiting Writers Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, a National Poetry Series award, a Pushcart Prize, a Best American Poetry selection, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Wind in a Box, his third book is forthcoming from Penguin in the Spring of 2006. He is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his family.