Untitled I

Do they wonder their place? 

Ants on a treasure map 

Scurrying along pre-programmed routes 

Wherever their instincts demand 

A weed in the sidewalk crag 

A maggoty peach 

A steaming s**t 

/

Their necks a permanent arc 

towards each square Of pavement they must compress 

To keep their schedule from detonating 

And still no one stops 

To wonder if he can really carry 

One hundred times his own burden 

/

A bag slung over tensed shoulder 

Church bells sighing in our ears 

We scurry towards the guillotine 

Hunch over our asparagus at supper 

Don’t answer when Mother calls 

/

In the night two gold-leafed ghosts flip across the ground 

turning themselves over to sleep 

A spider finds his final rest in his own web 

closing his legs upon himself 

a dead man’s limp hand curled on the floor 

/

We were not born from some grand fusion 

But from a whimper and a pile of dirt 

Dust on the venetian blinds 

The ashes of Mother’s addiction 

To scrapbook cigarettes and peppermint candies 

/

Do we wonder our place? 

Or will it be a surprise when our flakes 

Land in a charcoal “X” on the treasure map 

And then swept back into the sidewalk crag 

For someone else to find

Author's Note

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