A Lower Register Sweetness

A Lower Register Sweetness

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What a privileged person I am
to be relieved to no end
and to have you back
putting me in my place.
Thank you for coming
along! Thank you for ordering me!
We’re ending a crucial few
decades of prime thinking
and doing and conditioning
and humming along
with our able-bodied heads.
And now we’re coop-flown
according to the actuarial
sciences. The future
is comprised of supervised
high adventures. Those are the matters
of fact weighing down
our stacked deck.
You prefer the drone
of being done
over being done over
and I’m lying down
with arms across my chest.
I can’t do anything.
I can keep my mouth
open. I’m leveling my head
with a disheveled table
and you are above me
and I need you to discuss
me by yourself
away from this place,
and with one of the biscuits
I made earlier, in your hand.
We’ve just had
the last civil disagreement.
There will be no others
on this property so long
as I’m the demand
of this house. The light
switches have a color
and they didn’t before.
The drift we’re getting
is exhausting,
unsightly. Heavenly
to have even a thin
space to settle
my affairs. And what
of yours?
Within arm’s reach,
enough to live
for days.

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Editor and publisher, The Nation

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