Fireworks
The world was designed and built
to overwhelm and astonish.
Which makes it hard to like.
Like, an American is someone
who thinks Jan Vermeer is from Vermont,
and a woman. I am a woman from Vermont.
Little less surprising than the copiousness
of transpiration, which is so inconsequential
I cannot live without it. Later I will look
for a nail paring on the floor,
as if a maid were coming tomorrow
(one always has to pick up first).
Right now I am writing
on the back of a bank statement.
My happiness is marred only
by my failure to attain it.
Otherwise it would astonish and overwhelm.
Quick, children, put on your robes,
we must all go downstairs to see something.
On this same night was Balthazar
murdered by his servants:
what the Russian soldier, quoting
Heine, scratched on the wall in the room
where the whole royal family was shot,
shot to fleshy pieces with many aims,
at least twenty of which left
explosive stars in the wallpaper.
Their greed and power astonished all.
Their death overwhelms us.
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