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.