Depraved Cogitation
Henry Israeli

In the movie, two teenage boys find a naked zombie woman
tied to a table, and one decides to keep her as a kind of girlfriend.
Don’t laugh. Stranger things have happened.
Someone shot Archduke Ferdinand,
a second rate monarch of a third rate nation,
and that started a world war, for Christ’s sake.
In my first grade class, a boy crapped his pants
and even though we could all smell it
the teacher never even noticed.
Life is full of odd events that lead to
odder circumstances. You’re not supposed to ask
who tied the zombie woman to the table
in the middle of an abandoned insane asylum,
or what exactly an Archduke does,
or what kind of numbskulls
are in charge of your children eight hours a day.
Just go with it, or learn the art of augury,
invest in the right tenements,
have a smoke in the shower,
or better yet, think of the fish served in China,
cooked yet still alive, its heart beating,
its eyes sad and pleading for mercy, its tail flicking
back and forth, as you reach out with your chopsticks,
then question your motives. Are you really
as good a person as you thought you were?
You are stubborn, you are greedy,
you are horny, and full of disgust and resentment for nearly everyone.
You wind a toy up until the spring breaks,
you kill ladybugs that fly into your house,
you wear colors and patterns that make people dizzy.
The boys in the movie get their comeuppance
in a dazzling display of gore and carnage.
Gavrilo Princip died in prison, a painful death of tuberculosis.
The boy in my first grade class grew up
to be a certified public accountant.
And you, before you became an orphan at forty-two—
let’s suppose you got off easy, too. Easy as pie.
True enough. But everyone has a zombie tied up
in the basement. And one day it will bite
someone you love, and then she will be a zombie,
slowly rotting as you bring her gifts,
brush her hair, rub cream on her dry and brittle skin,
and make sweet, sweet love to her.

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