Authority

When the notes started, I knew something was off.The whole thing just felt so weird. I’m not the type,You understand, who wanders around searchingFor signs from some invisible world, readingClues into swallows’ migratory patternsOr decoding the secret meanings hidden withinCracks in the sidewalk. I’m not the kind who suffersFrom visions or shamanic revelations,And I don’t shout down people on the streetOr carry an apocalyptic signOr anything. I voted DemocratAnd do my nine-to-five like everyone else,Which is precisely why it doesn’t make sense.Why me? I am in no way special, or even,As my wife’s always saying, interesting.The doctors can’t even hide their boredom from meWhen they come in with their charts held to their chestsThe way, in movies, you see old-timey preachersCarrying Bibles. They say I’m fine, and tryTo smother a sigh, and say to get some rest.And that’s what’s wrong, really: that nothing’s wrong,And yet I wake up every morning knowingI’ll find another note, and something elseI don’t know how to fix.

        The whole thing startedWhen JoAnn—that’s my wife—told me aboutThe lamp in the back bedroom. It didn’t work,She said, so naturally I went and changedThe bulb. Nothing. I checked the plug, and triedAnother outlet. Nothing. The thing was dead.Of course, I’m not the handy type—a factOf which JoAnn constantly reminds me—soI told her not to worry, that I’d take it To someone who could fix it. Thing is, they couldn’t.So off to Sears I go and buy anotherAnd bring it home, and set it up, and: nothing.I told her I’d take the damned thing back in the morning.But when we got up, we were drinking our coffeeAnd kind of roaming through the house to openThe curtains up as usual, when we noticedThe note. A sticky-note, hand-written, black ink,There on our new lamp’s patterned white shade.What did it say? It said, LIAR. Can you believe that?

I’ll tell you now, we didn’t know what to think.JoAnn, of course, assumed the thing meant me(As if she never told a lie), and starts in on meWith questions. Do I have a girlfriend? Have IBeen sneaking drugs? Am I a compulsive gambler?I told her that she knew as well as I didI’m home with her every night, and eat with herAnd go to bed with her and fall asleepWatching Fallon with her. She gave me a look,Like maybe I had figured out the trickTo being in two damned places at the same time,Like I’m the type who just would have mastermindedSome magical scheme to wiggle out of the lawsOf physics in order to get away with somethingDevious. I told her I hadn’t done anythingAnd she knew it. And then I kind of wonderedIf maybe she had been living a secret lifeBut I knew better than to poke that dragon.The question then was: who had left the note?I surely didn’t know, and hated to thinkWhat it would mean if JoAnn somehow knew.She said she didn’t, and, well, I believed her.So we said kids, and then intruders, turningOur talk toward an analysis of howSocio-economic pressures causeEveryone in capitalist culturesProblems, as those oppressed through povertyCannot be seen in isolation fromThose who oppress them, and the crimes committedBy the oppressed in desperation are,Ultimately, only natural reactions, Of opposite but equal force, to the hushed crimesCommitted by those who are their oppressors.We didn’t know what else to say about it.A mutual sigh. We let it go at that,And then got dressed, and went about whateverThe business of the day was.

        The new new lampDidn’t work...