History

for all of you in your twenties

Only the young dead know they are no longeryoung, and this poem is such a failure becauseeach line is the scabbed-over lash of a whip.

When it’s signed, completed, and read aloudby summer, the faraway audiencewill stare at the marks like blackened meat.

Why don’t the lashes turn into snakes, slither awayacross the roof? They hang there as quietlyas ropes tied with ancient quipu knots,

mute as the window shades.Behind the curtains, someone is performingan “Eating Poetry” poem,his angry mouth stuffed with his murmurings.

It’s so mysterious. If this poem were written by a tankit might be a masterpiece, crushing blood and bones.Now, only night is squeezing its poison

between the teeth of glass, spilling into their young eyes.And the clock on the wall keeps ticking. Snoring evenly,dreaming of a roast chicken.

2009.6.6