We lie in bed and avoid
turning the hump of dead matter
covering what used to be flowers at the edge of the lawn and outside the window.
Snooze a bit longer,
miss surprise and capture
by a risky, pleasurable rush of trust another season could arrive.
Tricked into rest
by the Hard Men’s laughter,
disguising the clever weed as inevitable and wise.
We paid the bald candyman, the adman, the ticketseller,
all winter watching,
from inside,
the live tweet commercial slicing of butterfly wings and blossoms,
forgetting the uncontrollable volume.
Forgetting, we feed chemical laughter
on the growing things in one another.
***
Faithful we loll.
A report will tell us what’s outside, tomorrow and
how to avoid the risk of painful, stretching growth all through the day.
101.
Passing through the rain to errands of little import,
we’re easily convinced that we deserve a break, today.
The paid broadcast is always on; not alive, but feeding.
Ready for us to come home to the satisfaction of patronizing
another’s reality.
The regurgitated meal comes with a side show of good cheer.
We trundle, sated and overfull of murder, mayhem, poverty, and lust,
to a little death.
The sheets are cool with the passing of delight’s language
from our vocabulary
and the season we forgot to dream
could arrive.
We never mind. We cover up.
A blanket will hush turnings and rumbles in the night,
the unsettling sound of our own weakness
looking for pockets of air
and light.
We vaguely rub the carbuncles and scars
formed after cuts
the Hard Men made while
whispering “words never matter.”
They fly over our rooves on a serotonin high and
pay the ticketseller sandman adman by a sliver moon to leave our minds snagged on bitter roots.
In this way, the Hard Men know, nothing unexpected will grow.
***
Like trees, we do remember and the signal travels underground
from one of us to another in little shudders.
The message, something is lacking.
Perhaps the oxytocin memory of a nice word we meant to say?
Our atrophied muscles are too weak to enjoy holding
alluring, gratifying, lush, captivating, enchanting, congenial,
scrumptious, satisfying, refreshing, or brilliant
in our mouths,
ears,
or eyes.
In the morning, we’ll feed others what we have eaten.
Rain gray on seedlings and oak, alike.
Forget that all living things,
our selves,
die without delight.
Δ
