Breach

I pull my underwear out of a bag. In fact, all I have are bags and boxes

filled with lid and jars - yogurt cups, bottle caps, coffee cans -

filled with pencils and paper clippings; all the dolor of tinkering.

Perhaps that was Roethke and nothing at all alike because, of course, this is not all:

Somewhere there is a bag, maybe a box, full of old underwear.

Summa cum laude via Literature: I know nothing of Shakespeare. Nothing.

Instead I spend hours with the dead who refuse to think after they think and speak.

I steal entirely from these everyday geniuses; those who are unable to hear

their words, words, words: I do nothing but steal. At cliffs and dams, I stalk friends

after they have died; I say I am coming, but the more I pull the trigger,

the more I come alive. Still, it all comes out as word, swor, dswords…

(these are my words, words, words).

I smoke and go (or don’t) and I never sleep in a bed. I check for cancer daily;

the tumors have formed to the shape of my hand. I sleep if it’s convenient

and I pee nicotine while I rehearse telling my family I have developed an old disease:

I’ve practiced this with my preference for the wrong sex and I don’t know who the hell made it this way either, but when I stand naked in the mirror documenting moles,

I end up dancing like the Happy Genius that I am.

I have only ever hated one person. Maybe more. I do not let God know this.

During class (I often dream of a boxing match: e.e. cummings sings

sweet obscenities from the stands and long dead relatives pass out poisoned peanuts

to my opponent’s fans. In the end, her fans are dead. I resuscitate them all.

She doesn’t give a damn) I am always praying.

3:33 PM - 7/20/2006 - post comment