The Platitudes
       

I am perfect and you are perfect
because we suffer and because we
love trees and monstrous girls
from Pasadena, all of them
obedient and dull. The trees
are wicked, the trees
are lonely. They beckon to us,
but we take no notice of them.
Instead, we call the police,
who are all vegetarians—big,
lonely vegetarians. Freedom,
we shout, give us freedom!
We have been occupying
the square for days. We mourn
our myths, like the one about
how we first were mountains,
then horses, then trees.
They want to replace our
shoulders, our knees, our spines,
but we will move to China before
we let that happen. China, where
God is in the avocados, which
we slice up and eat. Everyone
obeys us, even the uncles
in the trees, even the nuns
fidgeting in the shops.
Come, drink the forbidden
slurpie with me. Get drunk
on football games. Bury your
money on the outskirts of town.
I hear noises. Do you hear
noises, too? I have friends
everywhere, except here.
When we leave the square
our naked victims scamper
off to the shower. We hear
crying in the stillness. We try
to apologize, explain ourselves.
The hotels have been turned
into prisons. Electricity has
been cut off. We wash
our genitals in the dark.

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Copyright © 2012 Terence Winch All rights reserved
from Conduit
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission