Tuesday, June 27, 2017

FULCRUM POINT

Every morning, or maybe
even more often, for the last dozen 
years—it's 
been like this. But I'm not 
crazy; he is.

Hey Dan, it's 
me, he says; 
your humble ubiquitous 
plastic black 
men's pocket comb

Why not write
a nice little image poem 
about me 
in a profoundly 
casual tone? Can you believe it?

I mean—he's not exactly
one in a million; 
it's more like 
literally (probably) one 
of ten billion clones

which lurk 
like hideous spiders
inside every junk drawer 
and travel bag 
in the world, 

which hover, all
dead and distorted,
inside all of those 
weird alien blue 
jars the barbershops use,

and which sulk 
forgotten in bathroom cabinets 
(you know, those deceptive, 
untrustworthy kinds, 
on the other side of the mirror?)

Forget it, I've always
told him, it's way too difficult
to even so much as squeeze you in
to whatever
thing I'm working on; face it,

you're full of dead skin 
and hair fuzz, and not at all 
moral, like the good old 
soap is—or virtuous 
like the upstanding toothbrush.

But it must be 
his response, that inevitable bristle 
of silence, which, lately 
is forcing me to admit
that what he really represents is

one of the most workable 
means to an end 
that exists 
in my entire universe,
And that, pretty much all the time, 

I totally find 
that damn mind-
numbing 
ubiquity of his, more than 
slightly—reassuring.