I should have taken more photos

I should have taken more photos, should have written more details

down; I should not have responded to that particular slack

message, should have tried to tip the scales in favor of good, told tales

to make the tipped scales stick. I bounce back from nothing, track

my so-called progress at getting braver, getting more pronounced

at articulating my needs. Do my children articulate their needs?

They do. Usually with a yell or a whine. I long for unannounced 

company and for the non-edible weeds to grow less thickly.

The garden cetipedes do their thing, but I don’t really know

what that means. I grow more impatient but better at ignoring

my impatience, age has bestowed upon me some self-control.

I don’t know what I should expect of my children. I sign

a lease for a new studio, watch videos about pulling up carpet

and finishing subflooring. I feel like there are a million

hidden meanings in every interaction and I ignore most of them.

The Wednesday farmer’s market is open again and it shouldn’t

be a political statement to say you oppose killing civilians.

Today’s quote from Trump is “I don’t care about that,” where

“that” is enriched uranium in Iran. My opinions get me

nowhere useful, and I’m often against what’s useful. Mike

sends a picture of graffiti in Seattle that talks about making space

for joy and we joke about space for okayness. The untruthful

assertion that joy is where it’s at. Desmond asked me to read

a draft and I edited out so much. Could barely read the poem.

The crucial information was totally inappropriate. I scratch

the scratch until it bleeds and wonder, is this a form of stimming?

I wonder about my ovum, about the ho-hum daily okayness,

my ability to detach. I am brimming with neither confidence

nor detail. I save those for my poems. I find it difficult

to articulate a clear thought at work, and when I do, it renders

me unable to listen to anyone. This is obviously significant.

I have wanted to be an old man in suspenders, have wanted a thought

worth having. Thought. Worth. Having. What is the opposite of that?

That’s what’s in my head, in the poem. None of my thoughts are

mine, but they come to me from whatever trajectory or side of the table

they’re on. My side, your side. Left brain, right brain, no brain.

That’s what Cure for Paranoia sings. So. No brain. No thought. Just the

accumulative meaning of experience, or language, or time. Whatever.

The cogitative capacities of poets have not been overrated. I think

my country actively distrusts poets, and by my country I really

mean the government of this country and maybe most but not all

of the people. The land trusts us. The sky, too. I am trying to fill

out the form about my child, who may need accommodations,

and I think of all the accommodations that would have helped

me through college. If someone had put me on Ritalin earlier,

I might have been able to keep a job. I might have suffered

a little less. Out of malice, I imagine hanging a poitier on all

our living room windows. Like the excessive curtains in my aunt’s house.

No, I haven’t recovered from my last romance, but I have

discovered that recovery is irrelevant. As a lover, I’m destined

to go on loving inappropriately. Forever, I hope. Let me never

get over anything. Let it all pile up. The days, the confessions,

the keepsakes. So that only an archeology can sort them out.