How about an exercise in
kick the can, with the can
being really an immobile
hunk of lead. I don’t know
about this.... Perhaps things
not even mentioned in prayer,
a revealing pastime: our fallen,
whom art hath bested, etc.
What might I never tell you?
Things forgotten, of course.
And what if I learn that I’ve
intentionally eliminated? A
part of me might knowingly
do that. I’ve known trauma,
the fuzzy glow that exists a
round such milestones. Am
I stalling? If so, it’s not be
cause I’ve remembered or
dredged anything up with
which I might regale dram
atically. The dog I got for
Christmas when I was four
or perhaps five was bound
from that day forward by
chain to a backyard maple,
which in turn choked the
tree to death; poor dog,
so noisy, living life afright,
no doubt about it. Is this
what I’ve been aiming for;
some sort of childhood crime
for which I should feel app
ropriate guilt at confessing?
But guilt is such a useless
rashy warmth, I’ve found,
and still manage to fend it
off on almost every time
it wants to creep up, as it
does, in hopes of becoming
my undoing. Whether mom
entary or permanent, I’m
not the least affected, own
up fine to what I have or have
not done. In general. It’s not
that I don’t try my damnedest
doing good, being a bit of light
instead of blight. Poor Snoopy.
I plumb avoided him once New
Year’s had arrived, and hence
forth as well. There were a rash
of bites as I recall: the neighbors’
kids, the siblings. What was I to
know of coaxing fear into a com
fortable warmth? But surely I’ve
a better secret up my sleeve some
where – I think I’ll take the time
to examine the inner workings of
the stitching of my shirts, the warp
and weft within the inside crook of
all my winter sweaters, those be
longings vanished long ago, just
as everything material did, by the
time I was fifty, if not decades hence.
So why the somber tone of this, my
overwrought tune of innocence?
