People rise in the morning,
apply their clothing,
and arrive at the stadium on time.
Easy.
But like a many-layered UPC code,
connoting price, and weight, and volume,
there is more beneath one's own will or intention.
We can stack our coins on the dresser,
we can arrive on time,
and we can clean out our own intestines.
But the hero lives here,
underneath the bars and numbers.
The hero leads us from one concussion to the next,
like when
a serrated kitchen knife is
plunged and withdrawn
like an ATM card or a cock or a retreating army across the border
at center court in the center of the stadium.
So now the spectators insert their own frustrations and
goals into this same spot,
this same
breach of skin where the
blood clogs up.
This spot where the rectangular contortion
of Ms. Seles's mouth makes a
wangangangangangangangangangangang sound
wangangangangangangangangangang sound and vision makes for
grainy memory but the hero is at work now
underneath the bars and numbers
so that the knife becomes rusted and
bloody with the sickening aspirations of an
entire city block
where someone even sweeping outside can
become whispers to you.
Her mouth is a rectangle.
© 1995 Daniel X. O'Neil |
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