Lately

Lately I’ve been waiting for the FBI to arrest me as a fraud,
or the CIA to hire me to spy on the inner lives of fools and idiots.
Last night torrents of water flooded my sleep; overflowing
rivers of mud and shit streamed down walls and into basements,
washing away sump pumps, drowning elevators, eroding foundations.
Perhaps the EPA will come after me now, or the Army Corps of Engineers.
Sluggish, I can hardly move my body out of bed as the cold air
weighs heavier than the warmth of love-making that is, for
the moment, eight time-zones away. Remodeling a house takes
too much time but selling it seems a copper-pipe dream.
Perhaps the Corps will hoist me up using a crane and solve
the dilemma of the unfinished bathroom plumbing and walls.
The Buddhists recommend letting go of materials and wishes,
but I still blow out birthday candles and buy lottery tickets
and ask old lovers if they remember me fondly, at least.
I’d hide like the iron gnome in my garden, under mushroom
umbrellas, if I thought it would help solve the problem of
the world. The United Nations could feed me, then, and the
CIA try to assassinate me instead of hire me, and the FBI
pay me as an informant, while the Army Corps of Engineers
builds a levy to hold me in and the EPA declares me a disaster
and Cohen’s monks just laugh and laugh and laugh. They know
I won’t win the lottery and the only birthday wish that comes true
is the present, old lovers forget, and the bed? Too warm in summer.

Democracy in America
©2006 Michael Dickel