Going
By David Rivard
Sunlight fades
the storefront full of magazines.
Month to month
they boss us—the covers,
they tell us
that if we want to get happy & alluring
(real happy, alluring sexually)
we must for goddamn sure
take up the breeding of Jack Russell terriers,
or else dig
ourselves
a little backyard fishpond.
Days of fish, days of dog, days of sex—
in that order, necessarily.
In the sun
all the titles are trying
to vanish—phrases like trout pond
diluted, the 20-point sans serif, inked-red
passion bleached now, apathetic, ghostly—
words that want my attention
like movers on the street lugging mirrors,
a moment when I seem to
come toward myself & then
I’m gone
too. I am not
a greedy man. All I want
is to be a visitor to this life.
Copyright Credit: David Rivard, “Going” from Bewitched Playground. Copyright © 2000 by David Rivard. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.
Source: Bewitched Playground (Graywolf Press, 2000)