Most are
unwilling
to buy
underwear at the thrift store.
But what is
willingness
when
Afghanistan is a spot
on our
minds we can’t locate.
I buy mens and womens.
Yesterday
at the meat counter
I ordered
the roast beef.
It was unbelievable.
Even the
butcher’s boy,
whose
version of Afghanistan is farther flung—
a black
whole, a quark— said chicken?
Like wiping
egg off my chin
at a
funeral for a worn-out pair of lovers who’d exhausted
at least
fifteen vocabularies on their drive through Death Valley,
I had to
correct him.
Kick off
your converse and swim for your life!
When the inspector
comes
don’t tell
him his fly’s down.