I GRADE ONLINE HUMANITIES TESTS

at McDonald’s where there are no black people

and there’s a multiple choice question

or white people about Don Quixote

or Asian or Indian people I don’t want to be around

people I want to be here where there is

free wireless I do not want to sit at the Christian

coffee shop or the public

library No, I want religion to blow itself up

My sister converted to Catholicism

I do not want to sit at Starbucks

I like McDonald’s coffee because it is cheap

and watery I like how it tastes

I like this table where the old man

is telling his old friend

about the baby black swans he would feed

corn to in Cairo, Georgia when he was a kid

No, Mark Twain did not write Don Quixote I’m going to

be here a while in this fucked up shit

You can get an old Crown Vic police car

In Cairo for $500 so I read

a poem by James Franco

in the literary magazine I brought with me

My mechanic wants to fuck me

and the poem isn’t as bad

as people say he is bad One of his friends dies

in the poem He uses the word “cunt” I don’t know

what to make of it I read it as “Cnut”

the medieval prince of Denmark who ascended and ascended

to become the king of England I bet some managers here could relate

to Cnut Send me a pic of your

cunt the mechanic says I miss you I say what do

you miss about me He says “your big tits”

Elliott Smith is mentioned in

the Franco poem and might or might not

be a “cowboy” Maybe Franco really

is bad after all The Crown Vic is

a vehicle the way the police always

say “vehicle” not “car” but the mechanic

always says “car” not “vehicle” because I teach

the police I know how they talk The mechanic

says Alice, stop speeding and do you want

to see a picture of my wife No Cervantes

did not write “Because I Could Not

Stop for Death” and I will be

sitting here all day in this fucked up shit god

dammit click click click I keep looking

at things like pictures of your husband

which makes me feel sick

and watery Now a young boy maybe 8 or 10

in a booth across from me

is telling his mama his daddy’s new girlfriend is ugly

“She’s ugly, mama” and trying to comfort her

Do you want to meet in the Home Depot

parking lot? I don’t think this is a good

If I find you with him I’ll kill him

and I’ll kill you and no one will

know where your body But your husband

isn’t ugly he is beautiful leaning over to look at himself

in pond water or leaning over

masculinity itself leaning over the family

he has made for himself and the pond

is male because he owns the pond

and the guns are male because he owns the guns

and what’s happening is male because he owns the factors

that go into the car is male because he owns the police

and Home Depot is male because he owns and owns

and owns and all he can do is own

everything that will rot

like privacy or speech or porn or black swans

or my big tits which he misses

Fucking swans! A man decides to sit

next to me and he is frantically hitting

his Egg McMuffin on the table and then walks

outside and smokes a cigarette and returns

to his seat and starts hitting

his wrapped Egg McMuffin again

and then he sees my computer and asks

to check his Facebook so I let him

and then he wants to be friends on Facebook

and leaves his phone number on my page

and I “like” it and then in the background

the little boy’s like “She’s ugly, mama

She’s so ugly mama” and the mom

is like “Is she? Is she ugly?” And I think the mom

is ugly even though I don’t want her to be

and the other kids at the booth

are drinking milk and they are chubby

and eating fries and saying

“Yeah she’s ugly

Yeah mama she’s so ugly

You wouldn’t want to meet her

because she’s so ugly”