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| Pentecost 80 x 100 x 4.5 mixed media on canvas by Karin Goeppert |
CINCINNATI SPLEEN
So what do
you, like, want from life? This from
a
gum-chewing girl, eyes switching off just as I
register
her pointless question—
life
doesn’t take requests—
still I
wouldn’t mind languishing awhile
beneath the
weight of a half dozen essential questions, preferably
in a
garden, Calabria or California, either would do, olive grove out back
thunderstorms
in late summer, in the evening
so that it’s
cool enough to sleep
ants
everywhere in the aftermath of rain
like all
over that severed hand in “Andalusian Dog” and
a young
woman attempting to console the poor thing
although,
in hindsight, maybe there weren’t any ants—
I’m always
in search of
a perfect image
which I can then haul around
for ever
like an ill-advised tattoo, a motto, I try
to explain
all of this to a girl whose name—
she chews
gum like she really means it—
whose name,
whatever her name
is and who
wishes, just like me, that she was anywhere but here.
