Wednesday, January 25, 2017

TIPPING POINT

But how am I ever supposed
to know

I'm happy
until—afterward

when things are
worse?

She's looking at me now
as if

she's seeing
I can never actually tell her

everything a CAT scan could.
You must 

begin again,
she's saying. Always again, only 

each time, try to start 
a little sooner.

Bullshit. I start to say
that ignoring things

doesn't sound a lot different
to me than ignorance.

But the difference, now
I can

finally hear
while I'm still talking, is

one of those things
always seems like

some valuable-but-
hard to use compliment—it's

a silver dollar
being tossed to me

out on the street
by a stranger

who looks
and speaks exactly like me

just for mumbling
Agnus Dei, 

qui tollis peccata mundi, 
miserere nobis—

while that
other thing

just feels
obligatory.