Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Last Letter to An Open Door

I wonder how it will feel after they bite you

And then you fall asleep in front of the news

Showing the oil refinery on fire and then cutting

To surveillance footage from the circle K

Of the clerk fighting off two men who don’t

Stop attacking him until the floor around

The coffee island is an ocean of red-red

Sticky sugar syrup in thick plastic patterns

And then you just die, expire, pass on,

A swirling set of footsteps up through

The dark place where memories don’t matter

Any more. Go ahead now, look for

The kids upstairs, your wife who took

Out the trash a few days ago and never

Got around to putting the pork chops

Away and now they smell up the house

Something rotten. Or is now you,

Freshly up from the chair with stiff jerks

The way you felt sorry for your grandfather

Who had the hardest time getting up

From that La-Z-Boy before he died, but

Not before you helped him once, arm

Under arm and he turned his yellow

Teeth and spat at you to let him the fuck

Go, and yellow toothed you buried him

Under a sky like a lid laid down over

The rest of the world as if it were a

Sample of bacteria in a dish. And the lights

Are still on and the clock on the wall

Is still clicking out the movement into

The future and the white doily under

The lamp is dusty and you get to the door

And can still manage to get it open

And then you leave out into the night

Where there is a general sense of urgency

To find something to eat, anything to eat.

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