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We bark like dogs pacing against fences.
We love our fences—damn it, don't touch.

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Want to look around, take the two-minute tour?
Or should we kick your ass now and get it over with?

That's our idea of a joke.

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If you're looking for capital letters
you're shit out of luck
in this neighborhood.

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The Land of Big Ideas
exists in a different tax bracket.

Big Ideas sound like whining to us.

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Take a number and wait your turn.
Time's got a lot on its hands.
The ticket has an expiration date.
That date has passed. Late fees due.

Numbers scrambled, runny
like the bad eggs we're accused of being.

Why does everybody put us in one basket
then drop the basket, then pat each other
on the back and say well done?

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Our ice cream man was Mr. Softee,
not Mr. Lofty. He got busted
for selling pot instead of popsicles.

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We used to make mud pies like everybody else
but we got over it.

If you've got a clear puddle
why add mud and stir it up
so nobody can see the bottom
then stand there explaining the benefits
of muddiness and half-muddiness
and theoretical muddiness?

Somebody around here's
gonna push you in the damn puddle.
That's understandable
in a lower-case way.

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But some mornings here, the sun is so sharp—
every brick and concrete angle blessed
with edge, light and shadow breaking
the world in two—even God
would approve, walking down the street
with his blindness stick
and feeling the light.

©