2006

KEEP THE DRUMS AT YOUR MOM'S

The first rule is do no harm.

This turns out to be difficult.

Orange oil trebuchet'd over the top of the cubicle.

I am staring at a lump of clay shaped like a fathead fish.

The prism on my desk, my fake industry award,

Sends its seam on a lucite diagonal.

If I were to teach middle school math

I'd want to review my proofs.

The stack of trimmed letterhead doesn't light up to see me,

Doesn't it know I'm an addict?

If you want to use ProTools on me,

If you want to Photoshop my face, I'm ready.

"Unknown number" keeps flashing on my phone.

The white bird steps sideways in the melt.

Someone sends me a hate search.

The sleep of a barmaid is white as a robot

And all the perimeter's a butterfly bush;

I huddle under the lilacs.

Impossible for an individual and yet

Now come the stray billion diatoms carving out prime numbers in the slush.

The horse song which is a veto of all that is probable

On the left edge of the reading room,

The song of no experience, comes for the pale tray --

It takes a button from my coat and measures it in farads.

A tree street bends in its matching shifts

Intimating nothing but slavery and pendulums,

A rocking in the hips and overexposed film.




[This poem was funded in part by a grant from Mary Biddinger]