Hazard Warning
Caution: product may be harmful if swallowed, contact physician immediately. (Swallowed? We haven’t kissed for months. When we were young I probably ingested gallons of her saliva.) For skin contact, flush area with clear water for fifteen minutes. (Our lips rarely touch; hands do here and there, inside grocery stores. I re-tilled the bathroom last spring. I usually shower before bed and again in the morning.) For eye contact consult physician immediately. (Looking at her is looking at the sun; it burns and is blinding. She hardly looks.)
Storage: Keep container sealed when not in use to prevent contamination. (There’s mold in the refrigerator. Sordid milk crusts the front of the crisper. We had two separate sinks put in when we fixed up the house this winter.) Protect from freezing. (There are spare blankets in the closet in the hall. She’s a cover hog but denies it.) If freezing occurs, (I sleep on the couch more than two nights a week.) let product warm up to room temperature, (I wake for work, she sleeps, I shower, thaw out.) then shake before using. (She yells from the bedroom, we need milk. We don’t hold hands or go to the grocery store together.)
Disposal: Dispose of this material, (I walked out the front door yesterday. We never use the front door. I walked to my truck. I’m almost out of gas; I’ve crossed two state lines.) all its mixtures (She’s got mixed feelings, on the phone, she tells me, as I headed down the interstate.) and any spill residues (They aren’t my sheets, I have my stuff in a storage unit in the city.) must be in accordance with local, state and federal regulations. (She wasn’t local dad says, they’ve seen it before, you need someone from Georgia my brother says. They’re just trying to help.)
Peoples Janitorial Supply (People cleaning. Break-ups.)
Grand-fathered In
It’s a rejection repeated over and over again,
A simple intersection between where you live
(Physically)
And where your mind takes you when you say, “Home.”
Back to the woods of Georgia running
Barefoot in May or sitting in a cold apartment
Eating noodles and wondering why the phone never rings.
Time is assigned by culture.
Sometimes you sit with a razor-blade…
(Thinking about making modern art?)
You wear a t-shirt saying Fuck-Art-Let’s-Dance.
You use recycled metaphors and similes,
Myths to make you seem successful, stressful, hopeful,
(This is not your fault.)
You’ve been grand-fathered in.
One spring one of your mothers’ poems
Was about drinking Jack and driving
Head-long in to a Peter-Built.
The next winter her obituary paralleled her poem.
They asked if you wanted her cremated remains,
You said you weren’t hungry.
Your father drank too, mimosas at breakfast,
Drawing moustaches on people in the paper
While working the crossword in the back.
He is still alive, has a nice cardboard bed
And makes his way around the city.
The guy at the tattoo shop calls him Hippie,
The man at the Army/Navy store calls him a vet,
You don’t call him dad anymore
And he hasn’t called in years.
You just sit. Read. Write. Cope.
A resolution is found in ink and in the pages.
And sometimes, many times there is no resolution,
No answer, only writing and sometimes even that
Is grand-fathered in.
The definition of insanity is repeating the same action,
And expecting a different outcome.
