Nobody’s Perfect

1000 minks
died in upstate New York
of a virus
that’s killed over 200,000
Americans so far is what I read
first thing this morning.
That’s 1000 minks
that won’t grace the brittle shoulder
bones of any number of old widows
taking tiny careful steps down 5th Avenue
this coming Christmas.
I don’t feel much of anything
knowing any of this.

I fucked a transgirl once
okay, maybe it was more than once;
it was during a 6-month period
when I was so sick of women
I thought I’d strangle one
if I got close enough.
I’d tried frog legs & the army
& I survived both so I figured
what the hell.
Her name was Kyla
& if you caught her at the wrong
angle she looked like a guy
but otherwise she looked
just fine so you learned to avoid
the wrong angles. She was eager
on the cock, sucked the balls
w/o being told but I grabbed
her head & ground it into
my crotch all the same;
hell, it’s what I’m used to
& it helped complete the illusion.
I told her I wanted nothing to do
w/whatever was between
her legs & she was okay
w/that. She had to be. I can will myself
to not see what I don’t want to see.
I’ve gotten pretty good at it
over the years. You have to be
if you want to make it in this world.
She was a good fuck. Her holes
were hot & tight. She just had
one less of them. No body’s perfect.
I might look her up again some time.

I bend down over the litter box
& sift through the litter like a
damn Zen gardener w/a rake
in a rock garden. I scrape up the
small hard turds the cat has so fastidiously
hidden there. I always find them
& she must know I always do.
It’s a little game we play, I guess.
She has no natural
predators in this house but
instinct tells her
not to take any chances.
Damn that cat
knows me better than anyone.
I love her to death.

One Damn Fine Day

I used to worry a lot about
the future until I decided
there’s no future
in thinking too far ahead.

Just this moment
right here
right now
not the kidney failure
coming yr way
the cancers, the strokes
waiting for you
up around the bend
waiting to sucker punch you
to clobber you w/a rubber truncheon

Listen: I woke up feeling
like something was in my
eye this morning but there
was nothing there
nothing there at all
just this constant nagging feeling of
irritation like a grain
of sand had lodged
beneath my eyelid.
I put some eye drops in
I blinked
I looked like I was crying
I was going to have to look at everything
squinting through a little bit of pain
I was just going to have to live w/it
for a while

I fed the cat
& knelt down to brush
her humming compact
body touching my nose
to her cold wet one.
She wasn’t worried about anything.
I got to my feet
w/o having to groan
w/o getting dizzy
w/o having a lancing pain in my side.
I boiled the tea water
I fixed myself a cup
of yogurt & granola
& scrolled through my Twitter feed.
People were outraged about
one thing or another, nothing unusual.
A fly landed on the Vice President’s head.
It sat there rubbing its little hands together
while he was telling lies
to his opponent who was also
telling lies.
People were still getting sick, still dying.
The planet was on fire.
It was all perfectly ordinary.
My eye felt a little better already.

I looked out the window.
It was gray & almost raining
& I had nothing I had to do in this world
nothing I had to do at all
nowhere to go
no one to tell me what to do
no one who could tell me anything.
It was going to be
a damn fine day.