human beings are tightly programed to see and detect faces
they've seen faces everywhere, on skirts, on lamp posts
on the kitchen sink
they have especially seen the face of jesus christ
a couple of times
he was crying
and people think its a miracle
there is nothing miraculous about a man crying.
human beings, however, are equally talented at absolutely dismissing faces.
I'm so tired i could hardly breath. the festering air in this room pressing against my chest.
I'm so lonesome I could drown instantaneously, and it would be a blessing.
it is the sort of thing that is so terribly unimportant it swells gradually into
something utterly overwhelming you cant even react to it
it was not an event there was no catastrophe
only the state of things
my favorite poet did not kill himself
he only grew old in a city only miles away from his wife and daughter
whom he hadn't seen in a quarter of a century
they did not seem to really mind
the extended electric neurons inhabiting his scull
neurons that nourish on verse and meter
had slowly auto-digested the part of his brain responsible for detecting certain faces
in his 74 year old brain his dark eyed wife looked like
a burned blur
I for one
have run out of ways to handle the corners of this box I'm carrying
always carrying through the desert through the cafes through the family gatherings
at one point I dug in it
at another I wrapped it with floral white paper
I kept it in the back of my closet and heard it whisper to me whisper my name recite my poetry
and kept the closet locked.
I think I am going to eat a little and write a little
and grow patch of lilies in my backyard
magnolia too
pretend, wash out the parts that know I
was propelled from my mothers womb to instantly fade
or better yet
to wish to fade
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TEXT: ABBY JAY