The mess that was left on the table, after I asked for forgiveness
Lives were being ruined and few hands were raised in help.
If there’s a disaster I’ll hasten it. If there’s loose change
I’ll steal it. I got caught on the loitering, the sly soliciting
of my neighbor’s heart, my enemy’s soul. I got caught
when I made a report instead of a slogan. When I wore
the witch costume on an escalator toward redemption,
gambling on near-invisible odds that my teeth would be
whitened and that would be that. I got caught when I slayed
fictional dragons, when I slanted in both directions at once.
The cave factory was open and I shut it against orders.
I never liked Rothko or dog photos. I broke the wishbone
and tried to tape it back together but the transparency
gave me away. It was imbued with centuries of dust that
I swallowed and spit, hence the mess. I am deaf
and/or tone-deaf on any given day, stunned senseless
by the disparity of uniformity, by the awkward cadence
of a post-rhythmic world. The gravitas of the sun overwhelms
me and exposes my motives in shadow. Too many are afraid
of the nebulae. Too many are wiretapping the slow narrative
of our cells. Too many will slot the handwritten apology
into a file of its own, which might as well be trash,
which is both the crime and how I got away with it.