InDigest
By: Brad Liening
Must an awful kerfuffle envelop
even our most pedestrian terrestrial
exigencies? Yes but no but yes.
Okay, one more cup of coffee
but this can’t be good. There’s either
something wrong with my inner ear
or it’s a cosmic cog gone awry,
microcosm, macrocosm, neither
thought comforting on a Sunday
evening when no one can be cajoled
into grabbing a beer, not even
that one friend everyone has
who’s always ready to reaffirm
the buggy elemental ruction.
In those moments it’s as if my soul
accepted a job at the Pentagon,
far different from when I lost
my trusty wristwatch late one night
climbing a tree so packed with
pink blossoms it appeared
forever stuck in floral eruption.
You can’t stay in such a moment
for long, no more doable than
never needing to pee, so insight
falters and scatters into the weeds
as quick as the time between
mosquito bite and reflexive slap.
Of course it’s a bad idea to scratch
but who hasn’t not learned at least
one valuable lesson from some
fuck-up or another? It’s nigh
impossible not to light the fuse
as an explosion forever imminent
will drive anyone to lose their shit,
go prone in the corner or thrash
their savings to bits, to lurch
from a bar and into the street
choked with charred garlands
only to wind up in a pink tree.
It seems we’re pretty well screwed
one way or another, so here’s
a pie with a file baked inside,
a big plastic bag in which your
brand new goldfish turns and turns.
