It
was a good day and I was about to do something important
and
good, but then I unscrewed the pen I was using
to
see the ink. Precision German craftsmanship.
The
Germans are so persnickety and precise,
they
wash their driveways. Their mountains and streams
dance
around each other in a clockwork, courtly imitation
of
spring. They build the Panzer tank, out of rakes
hoses
and garden gnomes; they built me.
And
I’ve seated myself above an avenue on the brink
of
mystery, always just on the lip, with my toes over the lip
but
my bowels behind.
When
I replaced the ink the sky was socked in,
only
one window of blue open in the north, directly over someone.
But
that person was reading about Rosicrucians in the laundromat,
he
was unaware as the blue window closed above him.
The
rest of us are limp and damp,
I
see a button in front of us that says “spin cycle.”
I’m
going to push it.
Matthew
Rohrer, 2001
