Rather

Rather strapped face to face with a corpse, rather an asp

forced down my throat, rather a glass

tube inserted in my urethra

and then member smashed

with a hammer, rather wander the malls of America shopping

for shoes, rather

be lunch, from the ankles down,

for a fish, rather mistake rabbit drops

for capers, or pearls, rather my father’s bones crushed to dust

and blown – blinding me – in my eyes,

rather a flash flood of liquid mud,

boulders, branches, drowned dogs, tear through Boys Town

and grind up a thousand orphans, rather

finger puppets

with ice picks

probe me, rather numbness, rather Malaysian tongue worm, rather

rue,

rather a starved rat

tied by his tail to my last tooth,

rather memory become mush,

rather no more books be written but on the sole subject of self,

rather

a retinal tattoo, rather buckets of bad bacilli and nothing else

to drink, rather the blather

at an English Department meeting, rather

a mountain fall on my head than this,

what I put down here, rather

all of the above than this, this:________.

THOMAS LUX