Part of a John Updike poem in the Jan/Feb 2005 American Poetry Review, "Elegy for a Real Golfer."
"You were a butternut-smooth blond Southerner
and the plus-fours made you look cocky,
and the smile with a sideways tug to it,
but you didn't deserve to die that unreal way,
snuffed out by oxygen failure in a private jet"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Once upon a time, the natures of being human assaulted me. I was sitting at a table with my brother, after I'd finished eating a hamburger and french (freedom) fries, when my stomach was stretched by gas. It felt like it was going to be a hot release. I thought I might be able to force it up the throat, release a huge burp worthy of my sister-in-law's applause, but it didn't let anything beat it back.
It slid down through my intestines, in to my colon, and then pushed through my anus. It was silent and hot. I sneered from the pain the burning set forth.
After a moment the smell reached my mouth and turned my mouth in to cotton. I felt like I was never going to breath again. I wanted to run from it, leave it behind in all of its grotesqueness, but I could not escape it. It hustled all over me, telling me what I was.
Never before in my life have I ever never wanted to be human. But during that time, and now even every time I feel a fart of that magnitude coming, I want to win a grant for my beautiful writing, so that I can have a special unknown surgery done where never again will I have to realize that I am Human and that I stink.
DD
Post a Comment