My subject here is a creeping sadness.
Sadness leaves a kerosene smell
on my hands, slides my fingers
on the table, drum-tapping.
I've said my hands more before,
that they're warm. That was last winter.
Last winter, the air was more like peppermint.
Tonight, the smoke creeps uptown
from the grid's damaged edge.
Maybe my subject isn't a creeping sadness;
Maybe it's the kiddie feet that shuffle
around this place now. When I learned to say
"The sunflower turns to face the sun"
in French two days ago, it reminded me
of the creepy sunflowers of my past,
the BB gun propped in the garden,
the prosaic smell of my old backyard.
The sun drowned under fetuslike peppers.
Now I turn over to work, the forced interest
of a Big Daddy scouring for money,
and size up a sweet piece of prose,
ready to eat. It takes time to digest.
Prose can feed no one but the people next door.
Prose goes up my nose every day now.
The sadness of prose has taught me to smell.