Oh Jack, Jack did I learn a thing?
Was the only question I asked –
Would you, please, turn down
the air conditioner? I sat posed
on the edge of your office chairs
for two years:
a sculpture of a girl
in therapy. Stop-time animation showed
how this puppet grew heavier balanced
on leather seats –
did I learn anything?
The scholars all saw the gouged out eyes
(several weeks in a mental ward's work),
no one would blame her blind wandering
and Jack I am a million miles
away from you and that girl by now
but I can feel the pull in the recesses
of my marrow
as the planes of my body
stiffen into the hard surfaces
of my past life.
