GOOD
The other night I learned that there is something
called the glare of an egg
It’s the liquid that becomes a film at the boiling point
that connects the egg to its shell
and I said,
but isn’t the shell part of the egg too?
Good, my friend said
as though it was.
I said I seemed to be well-suited for living
much to my chagrin
It’s not hard to die, my friend said.
You could drown in a puddle
Have you tried?
That night I tried to seize the day
and slip gently into the water
but even though my eyes were closed
my nose was open
I smelled the sea inside my own skull
and surfaced exasperated
Tonight I made myself a dress out of butcher paper
They say old seamstresses used to do that
when they were practicing
or might as well have anyway
I could not perform the brutal act
It’s not so easy, I said
making pleats in the sunshine
Are you an angel? he said
and I said no, I’m just backlit
from this angle, I said,
everyone could be an angel
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HOW GEORGIA O’KEEFFE LEFT HER CHEATING HUSBAND FOR A MOUNTAIN
Carefully, as we all do the things we most want to do
I want to learn how to be a better person
so I have been practicing under a full moon
because I need the cover of darkness
but I also need the light
I don’t know how to paint flowers
in ways that suggest other things
I don’t know how to forget where I came from
I don’t have anyone to leave
except myself
and I am told that is impossible
at least in this lifetime
which is regrettably the only one I have
I find the idea of reincarnation soothing
only if it is possible to opt out
when you’ve decided you’ve had enough
of life as a cockroach, a dog, a metaphor
for something you would have learned
if only you hadn’t starved to death from fear
of having made the wrong choice
in a sea of wrong choices
I hate how everyone says that
everyone tries their best
and everything happens for a reason
The reason I am suspicious is
I spend so much time counting up my failures
I’d need to be an animal
with more appendages to count on
or chronic short term memory loss
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