An Age of Carting Cartilage

Our bodies were not built for this much living -
see the stretch-marks on our stretchers -
yet another imperfection
as we drag around our wretched temples:
pillars of
salt of the earth.

Each man is an island;
long-abandoned. Stubborn
clumps of dirt and nails clinging on
to life-

lines getting thicker.
Useless threads
caught in rhetorical sewing machines,
our damage is elaborate -
we are being delicately destroyed -
our blood is set in rubies, our death
throes weaved by hand
and laid out neatly
across three-piece suites
because this is what we've come to believe in,

this is what we've come to live in
and I only ever saw the grass on tv.

I line my bedroom walls with diagrams of leaves
while rocking back and forth to imitate the breeze.

I have been smashing glass bottles
because I can't find the beach,
I have been shelling out hundreds on life-insurance
in case I'm ever swept away
or off my feet.

Yet I can feel the wind on my ankles,
my muscles ache:
I am doing something right at least.






July 2009