Do you know how it could be
for all of us
if only there was some rat hole
on the premises?
It needs to be so
because in my location
a sort of disease
seems to be inchworming its way
on through.
My mother demands
that I launch an investigation
as to whether or not I'm still a member
of the immediate fam.
Well, my name reads the same in the ink,
but this ain't Scotland 1778,
so fuck it. And fuck
le nom de famille.
Though
I do recall begging her
for $8 plastic
figures.
They came with things like axes and
I liked the axes best.
With the axes, you know where you stand.
Then, I could renounce my family entirely
and end up salsa dancing in a Miami
moon setting. Or take a flight to San Diego,
but first, shop around.
Have I lost you, reader?
Have I lost you, vague listener?
Have I lost you, honeybuns?
Have I lost you, map?
Craver of dialogue?
Wearer of rigid makeup?
Let me tell you,
the print is too large on this page
from which I read
and there is absolutely no
experimentation
taking place.
Is it my fault?
Perhaps,
but maybe there's more.
Maybe the trapped dragonfly
plays a role as well.
Hold on.
The phone,
she rings.
It's the mother figure.
Are you ashamed yet? She inquires.
No. No. No. Not yet, I tell her.
She hangs up and this should concern me,
but I was born without a cricket
and tomorrow I will drive to the bookstore
and not think of her as I holler through
red lights and medians.
My father may or may not
have won a scholarship
to Oxford.
If you asked, I wouldn't be able to answer correctly.
Also, while you're allowing me to continue,
I have to tell you how decent it is to bleed
from the ear. I mean, really lift up your ring finger,
place it upon the lobe, and examine something
that once ran cross country through your insides.
Which reminds me--
Not so long ago,
say, on some Tuesday
where no one is counting, I thought about suicide
the way one thinks
about a Chevron station coffee:
Sort of burnt but somehow acceptable.
Then, while watching a film
about an old man who goes cut cut
cut in the bathtub because
he was a former nazi or maybe
a former jew, that's the thing,
he simply wasn't sure, my girl says
how selfish! I say, indeed,
indeed, but I've never owned a carving knife
and my bathtub is leased and
I have zero interest in world affairs,
so I suppose I have zero options
other than to remain
o so very altruistic. |