sick pome

When you’re sick, easy things become hard. Simple things develop the complexity of string theory, and feel oh so very trivial at the same time.

Such is the case with this sick student and his homework. Here’s an old pome that describes how I feel about it and also doesn’t at all:

Homework Song

After Mark Levine

Henri. Look. It’s morning.

You watch me scramble: clock from my ear, sand

from my pocket. I am a mirror, a two-way

lazy susan. I spin on my nose and walk

in circles. I am a lens, I am convex. I magnify, concentrate

light rays like old friends, I pull their hairs

through the head of a pin, one at a time. You left,

Henri, how could you, my nose full of tobacco

and lint. I live just south of you. My voice is all funny.

I am the Way and the Truth: I lick your shoes and you

don’t know I’m here.

I also sing and dance, very slowly. When I see

a stop sign, I tie my limbs together. It’s easy for Henri,

the rabbit taught him, out of the box. But me? I

ain’t Jack. I scratch my feet with a hammer, my soles

are too thick. I talk to plants about the weather.

I smell like television. They don’t trust me,

I seem to have it all together. I am ceramic

that hasn’t been fired yet. I’m this close to finding out.

We find out when we break. I run around telling folks

to have a seat. I bisect myself, whistle, cough

up tortilla chips at the crowd’s feet. Give ‘em just

what they want: salsa

all over the place. But now I know

I prefer chervil to cilantro, I am Jacque I say

bonjour, I am not a pen. I am dry. I can’t stand still. Itch

my head til it burns. I shed my fur in the summer. I am the 8-ball

on the lip of the corn hole. I am black and white. I am an easy win.

The light approaches and I become the earth. I spin

on my axis, elongate into an oval, careen.

Henri says I am a gutter.

I think I’m just the distal toe.

He crawls into the fridge, and I

Take the low rack of the oven.