About You?
is the title and the question, because i
play by my own rules, and that’s exactly
what’s emblazoned on the card i just picked
from atop this stack of ‘burning questions.’
and it is hot – so hot that my poor fan
(#2) is dying. i keep adjusting the cord
to keep its whir from dying a silent
death. losing one of my only fans (which,
while fairly cheap, like fans #1 and #3,
came to me via cash dispensation) –
but this is how i divert myself from
all things which must be finished:
playing bingo on my phone (my aging
eyes can barely make out the tiny
numbers on each grid); doing laundry
in a pair of buckets (one of which barely
holds water any more); watching the last
episodes of Ms. Marvel on my makeshift
teevee; sorting through my grandmother’s
photographs—my grandmother, the poet;
and this, my most thorough excuse, biding
my time by spilling these lines into a messy
little stack, just so, and then sending off the
untidy bundle, not to just anybody, no, but
this one especially for you. anyway, it turns
out that my grandmother and i have things
in common. i suppose that’s genetics, for
you. good grief, i do go on (as you well see).
i must learn how to be more succinct; can’t
figure why a sonnet isn’t good enough these
days. but sonnet or not, there you have it,
here it is, my point, the answer to today’s
purported ‘burning question’ (a set of
cards boxed neatly up and sold to me at
Target—the same place i got my dying fan,
it turns out—and check me out, i’m side
tracked once again): being a poet. i mean.
despite the comforting thrill i get from (now,
with some confidence) proclaiming i’m an artist,
that’s for sure the weirdest thing i am. to me.
. . . to be continued (as always)
