my time is here i' ve decided
and a life anywhere else would be pagan choreography...
as i have been documented serving wine
to the blind.
people need to be happy,
happy from sin.
i milk the atom.
i derive sustenance from it and i am the absolute
composition of whatever evolves;
i recovered overseas from assorted
parcels of general deliverance.
at present i am able to move my own bowels and
sometimes those of others simply by screaming at them;
i snarl, mincing declarations from the jinx
of intestinal stage fright.
we all get it and when it works
we are happy, all of us.
when it doesn't work...
nobody gets to shit. atom or no atom.
so i bruise my way blimping into holstered elbows like
they were loaded six-shooters to address this
malt of charity lookalikes.
they have faces of wood and sculpted soap.
they have the look as if they just devoured the
last great thought they ever had...
in fact they were the last great thought
that anybody had!
they did not milk the atom.
and i watch huge obscure bodies contorting indigo-blue from
the strain of celibacy upon their beneficent skins.
however...since all of our scars and bruises look
so much alike, as if from the same sins, they could
be just happy people with good tattoos ...
staining the silk of our undergarments with the
nervous sweat
of an evaporating
handshake.
Russell J. Sether
Copyright ©; 1998 Elisa Terranova. All Rights Reserved.