A Meditation Concerned With What You Might Be Meditating About, Ramona
A picture’s worth a thousand worms, Ramona.
The stars are the vestigial nipples of your Lord.
Darling, you have clipped the hedges even thrice
since I parked my shaving kit in your medicine cabinet,
and it’s time for us to speak, yet gently, again, about
how very much I mean to you. Mumbledy-peg,
Ramona. Ramona, Ramona, and the sky flung out
above your pointed shoulders like a knapsack
unfastened or a river with the hiccups. Excuse me.
You move through hallways like a water-bug on fire.
You slide down the conversation like guts down
a rooftop. Move the river to fit you. Suck all
nipples on the underbelly closest to your heart.
Fluff the pillows for the skip-tracers of your love
so they’ll be comfy while they wait for you
to make good on the bonds you have signed for.
You will find most of this information in books.
You think too much about Roman emperors.
Roman emperors, and their sly corrupted bellies.
I renewed my subscription to American Hand-gunner.
At least I heard your bluebird sing, is a song lyric.
Sometimes I wish I was Catholic, is another.
You’re thinking, I left a note inside a ship inside a bottle
for his mother, for when I kill him during
reindeer games and have to flee the country.
You think that’s how she’ll know to bury me
standing up. I say, I say, height lasts longer than
ambition. Much of what you think doesn’t
move me. Much of what you think, you don’t
tell me, Ramona, Ramona, you hardly live
in the suburbs in a white house. I have hunted
in the hedgerows for clues to your inner life
and I have hunted big game in your kitchen.
I fucked around and shot the pork roast.
The juvenile pork roast is considered a delicacy
in some regions, was my totally brilliant excuse.
I hate you. You love a spoon and someone else.
The sky’s so gorgeous and tubby tonight even
an earthworm could put you on its back, and fly.
-Josh Bell
