My Initiation Into Poetry
So I’m sitting out back, drinking a microbrew the neighbor gave me that finishes on a rich almondy note with hints of chocolate and smoke, swatting mosquitoes out for a blood meal but looking forward to dinner. The open shed—half catastrophe, half ransacked labyrinth—taunts me, dares me to configure and keep it as if I lived here. The baby toddles under the sheets hanging from the line, lets out a cackling laugh, turns and does it again. He stops, points and says “Caca! Caca!” as the dog pulls in its haunches and with a furtive look of shame begins to shit. This is my life, I realize as though it were a revelation, a still moment similar to one I once had on a similar October day kneading manured loam and planting pansies, which it surprises a lot of people to learn have antifreeze in their veins and thrive in winter. Then, without any further prelude, I see this vision of the Naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watch the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measures of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of “Kill! Kill! Kill!” and “Blood! Blood! Blood!”