Mass

TIME OFF

When your genius had grown tiresome to everyone,

and the profligate owners of many karaoke bars

had agreed to never readmit you, not again

after that last time and all the phlegmatic pleading

and bedraggled supplication, you had to go

down to the gushing artery of the interstate

and think of rivers. In your hands you held

a wheel of cheese you bought at a mall

and while the passing cars began to glow in the dark

and their horns sang intermittent rage,

you wished to be more intensely American.

In motion, slamming into the febrile horizon.

While the night just happened, no warning, no nothing,

you tried to eat, to not be hungry,

to be aware of many other things.

It was the kind of holiday no one despises.

People warred about snow and where coffee comes from.

A pigeon hopped past, unable to fly:

one leg dragged on the ground,

mangled, unexplained. You knew it would die.