You walk like a tree falling down,
arms long as a hydrant uncapped by kids,
with your ping-pong eyes and candy lips
all wide as your liver. Not to say
you’re living wrong. I’ve seen a house
collapse under the stroke of a painter,
and so know the wrecking ball comes
sometimes on a length of horsehair.
But fun is no kind of vocation, and
you’re no man on a ladder, hopping
against the face of my house, a cripple
two stories over the street. If anything,
you’re living a dog’s life of running
long and sleeping where you stop,
saying nothing, and then only Holy-
moley, holymoley, rubbing your head bald
until, cracking with static, it sticks
to my hands like an electric fence.
For godssakes, Bill, let go of me.
First published in Whiskey Island Magazine, Spring 2008.
