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A Biography of Divergence
Never mind the jewels he stole, the fat wallets
he pick pocketed. Never mind the glut of hookah
smoke washing over the bar he frequented. Never mind
the endless weeks of rock n’ roll — a rollicking lifestyle
of sex and drugs the public thought was his, the philosophy
of wild abandon he was accused of proliferating. Never mind
the thick register he updated meticulously during day, the journal
titled Bullshit he wrote into at night, vigorously with a fountain pen,
mostly after drinking gin. The landlady tried to verify his background
through a detective agency. She received intelligence that no family
with his last name lived in the town he claimed to be from. Was he
a trickster, a spy or simply a man who wanted to go by another
name? Never mind ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ tune
he whistled at a dive bar inside an international airport, never
mind the generous tips he left bartenders, the proposal
of marriage, in exactly eight months time, he made to a woman
he had just met on the flight — what was he thinking? Exactly. Not
much. The silver mace presented to him for being man
of the match at a football game was stolen from his house,
then auctioned off in another country as memorabilia
possessed by a controversial spiritual guru. Never mind the nights he grieved
for his dead wife, sitting his pug on his lap, stroking his fuzzy wrinkles
and nuzzling in despair his sad smiley maw, pouring his heart out in ways
he had never expressed in words, the song of consolation offered to him
as a sequence of sprightly pant-howls piercing the chilly night air.
Never mind the lives preceding his, the slow mount of mortality
in the amorphous distance, the fickle mind’s incumbency through echoes
of time, tumbling through gallons of space, the collision of animal cells
accelerated by environmental disasters— did he find
what he was thirsty for all this while? Nope, never
mind the bounty of lives he led, these lives belonging
to a bunch of fourth graders from an all-boys school
who once served punishment by kneeling down shirtless
at the basketball court for a couple of hours,
discussing briefly among other things
their favorite shows on TV. They never saw
each other again, or rather never knew
if they ever saw one another,
as their school closed down the next
day after state authorities found
it was heavily contaminated
with radioactive chemicals.
A Personal History of Vulnerability
chest grew clammy inside broth
soaked blanket once wind settled down
took shape in my throat the tuning fork
of voice oh dear after I glimpsed the eclipse naked eyed
around a rope of teeth wound a maroon riot of lips arched
in a painting the man usurped subject the mermaid predicate
inside me the eggs of fish aghast to stony bone they were cast
by the man’s sharked arrows of moonless tusk why must He clamor
to always conquer why should He not bow my child mind out of all
planets liked number seven Uranus the best preferred fission to fusion
when I pronounced Uranium the walls of my vocal cords learned to split
it seems from technique comes ascension but my
undulations aren’t interested in enduring the test
of bloody time I think about pleasure or triumph when I’m not
under pressure soon guilt demands testimony
in a witness box it moves like a cat on the surface
of a glassy lake a notorious mirror reflecting your arch
enemy: your vertical body in a tub of tomato chutney I spice
my carapace of skin tags amber how you fish out from my
hollows a love for the neo-noir genre I make mementos
of every equation we solve together we eat calculus
alive either shred time in our hands or piece
together breaths to punch holes in distance our prayers
in the cave had no words only numbers I ate dosas daily
for a year or two a slow burn of meat masala brought
me to my dark apple knees only in your spyglass the small
of my back dappled big with blotchy scabs the key
to loving knees is admiring joints right away while massaging
my coconut oiled head my mother planted on it small tufts
of story to keep away the white mice of dandruff one day the ultimate
opportunist of a mosquito made sure I memorized the color
of blood by sucking on my lump of stubborn flesh that God had
categorically carved out for the pink slurpy suction of one particular
lover in one corner sits holy ash in bottles beside naphthalene balls
unable to mask the L-sized doom in my wardrobe bring me
a smattering of all that my plate deserves the entire menu
of midnight flavors let your avian lips scoop antibiotics
into my infected mouth then slowly lift my sides
of speech those flaps billowing over rusting girders
sour buds bubbling to run industry of babble the bitters
leap at you like beagles after a bouncing tennis ball
catch those rowdy babies they go to bed when rubicund red
before you leave turn my taste to rum
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