My face
has been spanked by
a child today,
as gently as
a kitten might do,
simply for suggesting
said child needed
more years on the ground
before contesting certain things;
I took it well, I think,
which is to say
that after allowing said kitten
to bat and paw,
I set the argument aside
and walked away…
believe me, though,
when I say
it left me staring
at a tiger’s big bad claws
retracting into my fingers,
a fantasy of blood on my teeth.
I need not mention
the oil-rainbow sheen
of the rock dove’s
feathers.
I have no obligation
to praise the sea
as it needs no praise
to continue carving the earth
at its margins.
If I were forbidden
to speak of them
the abandoned strawberries
in the broken pot
would thrive or not
anyway.
I say these things
as a way
to keep myself
here. I am
profoundly unnecessary
to all of these
and to so much more:
to almost all, in fact.
What surprising joy there is
in admitting it!
yes, he messed up in the checkout line
a little
but that’s no reason
for the woman at the cash
register not to just do what he
wanted.
she was an accented woman
just this side of girl like the manager
who tried to explain the policy
the cashier was enforcing.
and then there was the fat man in line
who tried to intervene
in their argument and calm him down
and all the other
people in the store
who yelled at him for being
an asshole —
lessers. his
lessers, for whatever reason
he can find. how dare they.
how dare they.
he sits in the car
with his core on fire
and his arms twitching
running the ought to have done list
in his head.
congratulates himself:
at least he apologized to the fat man
who seemed not as lesser as the others, somehow.
the others? definitely more
lesser. extreme lessers.
lesser in voice, knowledge,
lesser because they just are,
obviously.
he doesn’t need a reason.
he’s a better.
a better by birth, choice,
obviously.
how dare they.
how dare they.
Dark Matter 