Perspective on Time
I
When I was nine,
I spent my time
at school or on the bus,
keeping quiet. A soldier spy,
Jedi Knight, superhero—
someone struggling
to maintain a meek secret
identity. This narration,
a running monologue
rewrote everything,
a chrome remolding of
every tarnished event,
until some khaki-slacked
teacher called my alter-
ego’s name. And I was
only me again.
II
If I swallowed enough
of the Ipecac, I just might
throw up that apple
seed. I would leave it
to rot, forgotten, in
a rust-colored, reeking puddle,
in the greenest city park,
underneath an ash tree. I
would climb that tree.
And if I never came
down, I could make it
always the tail end of
teenage summer: scratched
records, baseball, broken
curfew, cigarettes, and sex
forever.
III
Mathematic gravity
draws everything
down, even hope.
And people die
or don’t (whichever
is worse), hearts
are broken in
major metropoles
all over the globe,
every single second
of every single day. I
should relax: my sorrows
soon will sublimate, become
the littlest disappointments
lost in the confusion;
insignificant statistics.
IV.
Your own voice
will sound alien
to you. Your back
will ache. Your knees.
You will have to
shave your head.
Yesterday is a gift.
Today is a trial.
Tomorrow is a pox.
(2002)
