Somebody Else Sold the World

somebody else sold the world& before I knew it, the violet skyflagged with the sun’s violentdemands: for magnolias in bloom,natural light, any place magnanimouswithout locks or doors. Differentkinds of masks for being & breathing.The antagonists with their vanity tans& usual mischiefs whistled jinglesabout liberties & wars as we buttonedup our confinement & dreamed abouthugging. We talked about was & whenwhen we missed our friends & dentistappointments. Molars dropped outwithout breathable air. Hair forgotits natural colors without testimoniesat intersections & barbeques. Wordslost their family recipes. Friends losttheir words, then lost their parents.A masked few found love somehowin the gerrymandered grocery lines& farmers’ fields upturned with unsellablevegetables. So the antagonists corneredthe curfews, manufacturing argumentswith guns at the ready like henchmen.The air around us was so ripe, it mighthave broken in half if we could touch it. on the b sideThe song ends because the beginningdoesn’t jump-start again: red smudgeof a mouth, lipstick all over the placelike the afterthought a comet leaveson its way out. What makes this momentunfold like a woman raising herselfup from an unfamiliar couch? Honky-tonk in the blue honey of an eyeball?Perfume & its circus of heart-shapedintroductions? Innuendo alwaysstumbles in the lead-in, like a manpawing around for his busted spectaclesafter waking up in the world’s stubble.Hand over hand he paws, throughguitar picks & record changers, bustedgut strings & clothing strung withfamiliar vibrato outside the window.He could be Bowie himself, exhaustedby skyscrapers cracked in the aftermathof a smile. His eyes aren’t differentcolors. They just have different focuses.He could be a whole lot of nothing:thinning hair, low change in his rightpocket jingling down the stairs.He was given all of it & stole the bestof the rest. Even without glasses,he sees her nearly dressed: 33 1⁄3 rpmstacticky in the lead-out’s harmony. it was over way back thenbecause of want & tumble?Because of word crumblesin the kitchen’s halogen?No. Separate bedroomsfor years & here I am again:up top in the kitchen light,out front with a burnishedstove & the microwave’simmaculate readouts. Uphere, my crosscut handsgreet the butter knife beforethe big spread. What I wantnow is a better ideogramfor instead after the skull& crossbones on the pill bottles.What I want is a bucket formy panics & justifications.My coddled addendumsdowntagged on the sales tableeach & every spring. Herewe go with that old seasonalbullshit again. Earphones onso your eardrums don’t getpunched out near the exit.Tom Fords on, too, justfor the flex of it. Is ittoo much to ask for quietafter all my losses in thisinsistent chorus of renew?Is it too much to be momentaryin the morning grass, suedekicks beaten up by the dew?  haulI used to live in a sandstone housewrapped up in flowers. They weren’ttall like Neruda’s in his city nextto the sea. My flowers quicksteppedlike the town I walked the dogthrough—little magentas, roses,singsong rehearsals of sing-alongyellows & winking whites whenthe right breeze kicked up. Outin the yard, neighborly blossomsfalsettoed to the canopy each & everyspring. Suburb of aromatic layers,trimmed hedges pollenating the windowswhile my little girl gospeled downthe long stair of revelry. Glory be.Her harmony bent me like a starksong in the back talk. Euphoniumalong the length of yawning houses,those For Sale signs & emptywindows with timed lights. Everything sang its entropy. Almosteverybody grew eventually. Not byrevolution but realization: nostalgiamade mnemonic. What else couldI do after leaving that house otherthan become part of the chorus?Glory be my aberrant attendance,still trying to itemize the litanyof sunstruck days the waySisyphus did, hauling his bundledshipwreck up to the recyclerfor a few copper coins & a smoke.Glory be my busted, fatherly heart. gymnopédies no. 1That was the week it wouldn’t stopsnowing. That was the week five-fingered trees fell on houses & powerlines snapped like somebody waitingfor payday in a snowstorm. That snowweek, my little girl & I trudged overthe busted branches fidgeting throughthe snow like empty digits througha hungry pocket. Over the termite-hollowed stump, squat as a flat tire,then up & over the hollow the fox divesinto when we open the back door.That week glittered like a Christmascard while we poked around forthe best place to stand a snowman.A pinecone-nosed one. One withthumb-pressed eyes to see the wholepicture once things warm up. hearing damageI had a trumpet shapedlike a downward heart& I played it recklessly.All of its dented iterationsof brass & bell. Three-valve marginality.Marching band possibilitypointing at the muddydirt. I had a double-talkas slick & overachievingas a kid trench-coatedwith a boom box overheadin the rain. His socks:wet & ankle loosein their blueness.Argyle wonder caughtup in high school’s sloppygears, greedy for momentsof matriculated attention.& none of it worked—when the tape deck gotsoaked, the tape stoppedplaying. When the musicstopped, her shadesbarked when they shut.As if attention itselfmagnetized, stretchedaround eager reels, thenfed itself into the machine.Click, click, click.As if my bleating pleasweren’t big trumpetsfor attention, but gentlehalf notes trimmed intofunny polyester hearts,future palpitations of glory. somebody else sold the worldSo much yellow goldon me like a beehive—futureEverything goes better with goldfor the antagonists. They gild teeth& toilet caps with it. They writegrocery lists & postscripts with itwhile the rest of us cluster aroundthe jewelry shop hoping we’ll catcha sale before it’s Valentine’s Dayagain. Old traditions of huddlingagainst the elements learned back in the butt-naked day, mewling at the sky’s conditions. I’m jewelryless & archaic, sure, still calling love by its twentieth-century name.I’m abiding by the general ritualswhile making all the wrong choicesright next to a case full of pendantsblinking like my future paramour’seyes. I’m still looking upward, sure,prayer hands folded on top of the leatherhymnal. Every one of my busted loveschaptered & bound with gold leaf& not even the stars that gold comesfrom could save my copper-platedroutines. Future called it astronaut status,ATL skyline glamorous behind him.Some astronauts’ smiles look likegolden cityscapes. Some astronautshave gold wings & wedding rings,too, cast from the first available cluster. love notesDo you love vague commitments?Do you love bad news in crooning shapes?Whole or half, tattoos mooning onconjoined rib cages? Check this box &,like a breath, you’ll feel mostly bygone.Like one of those early recordings, you’llbe scratchy & demystified. Untranscribablyconfessional until the last quarter noteis a processional. You’ll be absolutely fine,flipped to the B side of this note’s high-linedreferendum. Magnificent & stark insidethe addendum, like a big breath exhaledthrough the smart part of a question mark. highestI’m the highest in the room—travis scottI rise up, therefore I must be like Descartesif he didn’t finish all the reading. I raise uplike the highest Black hand in history class.I am risen like the blood pressure of anybodyBlack mimeographed in the chronic textbookof this monochromatic year. That’s infantmortality rate high. That’s high-top fade high.Most everything up here hangs threadbare,squarely in the redline of summery excuses.Everything else up in here, from the copapologies to the solidarity statements: a doubletap of distraction for somebody else’shigh sign. That’s unemployment high. That’sMachu Picchu high. What a relief hardlyanybody stuck around to see me on the lowside of the mountain. What a reprieve becauseI kept rising stealthily—past my historicalanxiety, way past all my inherited hearsayuntil I am so high up on the shelf I eye-level alchemy. Even up here, I’m adeptat shrinking myself for safety. Even up here,my shoulders hunch like a small analogy.