May 19
URBAN LANDSCAPE
“I am taking this giraffe to the penthouse. Do you suggest the elevator or the stairs?”
“Why do you choose these complicated tasks to fill your
days?” asks my sponsor.
“You think this is beyond my abilities?”
“I didn’t say that. I
do believe either you or the giraffe is likely to get bent out of shape. But that is only the most obvious of
observations.”
“What if I told you being disproportionate is both of our
natural states?" I asked.
“I know that, too. My
darling little lamb, you may be a contrast to the multitude, but why make it
harder? Why not a ranch with cathedral
ceilings? Bay doors even?”
“You are taking out the spirit of adventure,” I say.
“Baby, you may have confused frustration with excitement,”
says my sponsor.
“Yes, but you have forgotten the view.”
Put three buttons
on a shelf.
*
NaCl
I work arithmetic instead of telling you to stop.
I make a light remark and never take a stand
until I have worked the numbers
and believe that the weight of suffering is on my side.
I store in the cellar the salt I found in my wounds
and label it, with names, dates and corresponding critique,
all waiting, hoping, I will never need to disclose them,
but keeping them accounted for just in case things go
badly.
I believe there is no chance for error with silence
and no wrong when I have backup in the basement,
but I need to table the salt and risk my reality.
You can’t hurt me worse than I do
when I pour old salt and create new wounds.
You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane
and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault
