WRITING EXERCISE BREATHING OUTSIDE MY BINDER
I’m as trapped as a housefly
in a vagrant’s unwashed beard.
Yesterday’s stinging snapshots:
fatty salted meat grilling madly,
a dying bulb sputtering heat and speckles of light,
Mama’s keloid-scarred cheek suffering pink foundation.
To balance that then with this now,
I gulp potent cocktails
of fluoxetine and chardonnay, and confess
that I am partial to crying jags
and this thing James Taylor coos:
Here comes another gray morning,
a not so good morning after all. . . .
I itch that scratch
before the refrain of the real
fades and forces me back
to my $50-a-week white woman.
Our current topic:
I collapse beneath touches.
What rises me is the relentless
march of seconds, guffawing weirdly,
all dressed in their heaven-bound church hats
and ripped little gowns.