These Things Come

For example, the green mango shake, perfectly sugared and salted, crashing down the carpet that is not yours, breaking a glass that is not yours. Carpet and glass are too expensive for the luxury of accidents. You're not a close friend. You've not had a sip. You are a shard in the fur.

For example, a lavender and yellow morning with a sun of courtesies and niceties and your intent to become, this day, a man. "Finally," they all say. "Finally," you say. And so finally You bring your heart to pen, your blood to ink, your heat to motion. You think grammar; you think paragraph sequence; you think metaphor. You write life; you seethe life; you promise life. The sun never comes down, already all happy in its height. Your letters come back.

For example, a blood-curdling cry. The justification for everything comes. The instant is now. You brace your arms, curl the fingers of the left into fist and bring the fingers of the right up front, forward as the white palm of challenge. Your enemy smiles. You see his ally reflected in his eye too late. The ally comes from behind with his blow.

Or maybe, for example, you drink blood, ink, and raw mango shake. And you also consume the vomit that issues thereafter. Then you vomit again, this time into paper. Then sign, as if a contract. It says that you promise to forget.

For example, you sign in perfect agreement.

Nothing really came, you say. You say and say again until the sun goes down spewing reds and oranges in its yellow wake.