My Solitude

A noose like mine, not as

Loose, but equal in strength,

Maybe in hue.

You are gone now, crushed by your

Creator.

Your brown bed barren, roiled by

Eight, twenty legs

Multiplied

And sticky worms.

I am not sad.

No funeral procession will hold up

Traffic for your sake, your annual sacrifice, a full mouth.

The way of the world is cruel

For you.

Sometimes for me too.                                                                                               

But I will see you again

For the twenty-fourth time.

He likes the way you taste too much

To abandon your conception.

Two weeks ago you were here and

I sat, my face reflected in

Your waxy coat

As red as the blood;

I used to laugh and lap it up like the

Thirstiest of hounds.

The ones in the commercials,

Liberated yet behind bars.

Their eyes always look wet.

“In the arms of an angel.”

The sympathetic stifle tears.

I would itch the scabs on my thighs and

Change the channel.                                                                                               

It is October but it is not cold.

The inevitable death is approaching.

You are not the only one who slips

Away.

Little Me,

As the cotton sheet is draped over

The hemisphere.

I retreat, recede into my dungeon.

But only to sleep.

A fungus with a fan blowing in his face.

I hate it unless I am

Asleep.

The inevitable death is approaching

But so is the inevitable rebirth.

This time I will be my master, or so I

Hope.

Orange and green

I place them on an upturned

Medicine lid.

A pill to make me wax

And wane.

But the bench beneath me doesn’t

Sag anymore! A brief delight.

But I fear I will never be as hollow as I wish.

I grow aware of the departure of

Light.

I instinctively flick insects of

Flight off my jeans as they stumble

Along the rugged inseam.

But I don’t want to flick.

Become a barnacle!

I paradoxically welcome you to

My solitude

I finished the book and sat paralyzed

By sadness.

Wedged in the pages, papers,

Receipts, birthday cards.

A brief delight in a cluster-fuck.

You are gone but I do not fret

For with one lap around the coronal column

Your arrival is produced by the

Paper-cut-prone hands of my father.

Crimson cone, warped and

Sheathed.

I will welcome you

For the twenty-fourth time when

“April showers bring May” – you.

Your embryo dripping and squawking in

Anticipation of the oxygen I huff

And heave as I ascend an endless staircase.

Did you piss in your mother’s womb

As I do every morning?

Half-asleep, anchored by cheap fur.

My indecent Eskimo’s arch is

Impressive.

I want to rip the page so badly.

“…my head swam like an hourglass into a tv set.”

I hear the echo of a gavel pounding,

A gavel as red as you.

And a verdict follows, my own voice

Crucify him. Crucify him.

It is a chorus of sinners.

We always sat in the balcony,

Always

On the stiffest pews.

Especially to witness the spectacle of

Resurrection.

The grass is a much softer place

To sit as I wait for yours.

Your squealing stops

After your birth. All is quiet as you hang,

Not even daring to swing from that

Noose.

Mine is growing looser, has slipped

Around my waist,

But again I will stare at my own face mirrored

In yours.

For the twenty-fourth time.

I am here still.

You are here every summer

Forever.

Perpetually planted to the far left.

Were you worried when the skunks reduced

Your neighbors to withering memories?

You will be red

Forever.

Do not mistake my tone for one of condemnation.

But I will soon take my leave to

Neverland to swim with the mermaids.

The hammer will

Inevitably

Devolve into a seahorse.

The noose, a hula hoop at my feet that

I cautiously step from to cautiously

Dip my foot into the syrup.

Millimeter by millimeter.

Who knew?

A pen to price the value of a pepper.

The muse never bids farewell.

-BENJAMIN SMITH