I will make this so much smaller
than it needs to be. Then,
when anybody wants to add something
to it, they can. I hope
you’ll be the first to say some more
from there.
Before becoming a Supreme
Court justice, teachers who punched us
in the head were for the person
we were to marry.
Now they influence us
in our decisions. And when we go
to the movies, we talk about that.
A drugstore, like the animal
kingdom, has a unity.
But if you have no drugstore
you can die in the savannah
from tripping on a log.
When I say, ‘why you little
drugstore,’ I don’t mean to sound
intimidating or poofed.
Lonely waiting around
is all, just to get back home,
just to get better.
My left breast is more screwed
up than I am. My bike
is a disaster. But the more I talk
about my bike, the less it
means to my breast.
A genuine idea must sit there
in the burning house
of all the old ideas and, finally,
when it’s about to give in to the smoke
and the heat, crash through the
plate glass window in the living room
and breathe while refocusing
on the night.
When you let yourself go, and so
your stare increased to the point of falling off
a roof, I knew there’d be some doctors
who’d want to see that, they’d say they wouldn’t,
but they would. And when the doctor discovered
how to remove the picnic basket
from my head, finding me asleep underneath, whoa,
whoa, great work.
JORDAN STEMPLEMAN