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Things Waiting to Be Dangerous Something gets tired of being said, I left my love of me behind to fester in the slough of cast-off self -regard with other toxic wastes, condoms I forgot and umbrellas that don’t close, festering piles of newsprint, misplaced phone numbers, things I never understood how to use: new shoes I wore holes into the soles of walking home in the rain and the soaked stained socks, paper bags of burned-out light bulbs and clear bandages, pill boxes, urine samples, nail clippings and used razor blades, danger biohazard; flotation devices in case of water landing, plastic bags of saline solution, things I never knew I had. (Bring it on, the waiting in a basement stall for someone to sit down, tap one foot yes, the workmen’s overtime contempt, a waste of spirit and I don’t even drink. Bring all the men in bedrooms bathrooms backrooms bookstores alleys who left me unsatisfied, came with me after all. I miss them now. Bring on my retrovirus, invisible catastrophe, distracted 27 Shepherd PG:Layout 1 12/20/06 5:27 PM Page 27 palindrome and abstract doom, another decade’s style in sex, or maybe it was imported, bring me something to drink. Something gets tired, undresses for bed.) I’ve considered you these things I never should have thrown away, said I was drowning, but it was never as good as when you took me down, went under. I’d ask the god of the good green sea for a waterfall’s rush into brink, sputter and jangle of brined plunge, but I don’t know his name. (Fill my mouth with water, salt, with sperm, and wash away the words.) Whitewater emptinesses hurl me into themselves, a place gets tired, gets read too many times: dawn-burnished lake undrinkable, raw sewage and dead seaweed, russet and gold toxins greet the day. Rot smell lingers all week, I’d love to go down again. 28 Shepherd PG:Layout 1 12/20/06 5:27 PM Page 28 ...

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