Single White Male Into
drive-ins, tight sweaters, old biker movies, good Chinese take-out, Thai coffee, roller
coasters, library archives, cattail marshes, ballroom
dancing. Prefers Anna
Karenina with a corvette, tempted by high-speed finger-fucking on interstates at
rush hour. No machinists. Welders, ok.
Understands how despair was a blessing for Elijah. If you
could perform unnecessary root canal on any
celebrity, who would you choose? Likes the story
about the football game between the Insects & the Mammals,
& how the Mammals were winning until
Centipede joined the Insects late in the second half, &
how all the reporters gathered around Centipede after the
game to ask him what took so long, & how
Centipede answered because he had to tape his ankles. Isn’t
scared of Bob the Wasp.
Enjoys reading Dr. Seuss. People aren’t thinking for themselves. People have not been
thinking for themselves for a while now. Rice
artichokes spinach black beans lemonade cinnamon roll potato chips ginseng root miso
tempeh french fries macaroni & cheese Pace. Knows the timeless
beat of frog in the cold coffee cups of janitors
asleep in boiler rooms. Does not have the hips of a twelve-year-old boy. Is at home in the orbit swept clean by Mercury as that swept clean by
Pluto. Sex near childbirth find. Exhortation is your
gift, even if you seek nothing other than refuge
from the “Bandits of hope and fear.” I’m not Goldfinger. And how come you don’t know who you are? Is it speech
is too slow? That it takes
too long to express? Because something inside is broken? Because
somebody broke it? Because you don’t remember what was broken?
Because you are spirit and the universe is also spirit? You
still get carded. Remember how to diagram a
sentence. Can chop an onion. Bury a child. Would rather
give and receive. Dresses up in blue on Saturday night.
Sees the present as an explosion that literally
blows the paint off your masterpiece. Makes love below sea-level, above 12,000 feet, amidst salt-water tears,
cragged peaks. Will give out the telephone number
for the tiny booth under the flickering light of her
unlisted heart. 24 May 1993 [Published in Grasslands. © 1994 by Jim
Cohn.] |