The Career

Someone is writing,
currently,
the previous books of
history, those which do not
involve us. They go forward,
ahead of us.
A blindfolded man kisses
the dark at a brown desk
while ironing his shirt.
He whistles and combs his hair,
prepares his speech. It is
his death speech, and the words
make such heaps of shapes
he cannot hear their sounds,
especially not
the little meows.
Someone
will be forced to take his place. So, he
wings it, follows through.
Says a number of very true
but very unbelievable things.
I remember that man
following me.
He was talking to himself,
nonsense over
Wall Street and how he
couldn’t find a fucking restroom.
Well, he swallowed my love
down his own dog’s mouth
like a ventriloquist; laughed his
owl laugh
through a glass of
water; plugged
his body
into an electrical outlet, three-
prongs; held the threats of
unimagined futures; looked in the
mirror and said hi to me.
Banquets of crying mothers
hired him, stupidly, to be their
photographer. He wrote their
biographies as my dying mother, told
the story of her dying to the dying earth.
A video of it was put to heavenly music,
and posted, and set when he retired
as he sat upon the toilet
smoking a cigarette
and wishing for
better times. Just then,
a wasp flew out from under his anus.
It glowed yellow and instead of
humming, rang like a siren, meaning
it was coming for him too.