It's Hard to Imagine That Nothing At All Could Be So Exciting



Published in Konundrum Engine Literary Review


We arrived and it wasn't so bad.  Really

not at all troubling, the way you sometimes hear.

The anthems were fish out of water.

The sweaters never grew past our chins.

On the bus tour we discovered that much of the material

came from the stage fright years, uninhabitable

to mere stationary cyclists, but:  home is home.  

My cube was tidy.  I kept swordtails and guppies.  

The rain gutters were made of brass.  True,

the operas suffered from the failure of the inevitable

to embody the fullness of the uncertain.  But

a man named Zhu sold us applesauce doughnuts.

Books were made from paper.  Past all reason

was cool.  Then the ice cream trucks

with silver megaphones appeared.  They said

we'd have to leave.  Emails went sosumi.

Officious letters filled my tin box.  They pinned notices

to telephone poles.  They told us the plots

to the movies we were waiting in line to see.

They said we'd have to leave.  Plus

they said, the joke's on you-this isn't bliss

or cloud nine.  No, this isn't heaven above

or shades below.  We've no idea who you are

or what you're doing here-are you eponymous?  

One of us nodded as another shook.  

Well, finish your business, they said,

and get on your way.  I was sad.  We had almost

learned enough Chinese to order muffins.  

I paid my parking tickets.  I left my flower horns

in the bathtub with enough food to kill them.


last updated Tuesday, April 04, 2006 @ 2:39 PM