Hypothetical Antipodes, Judgment

By Philip Jenks

Hardly any of me is solid any more, I mean I buy

things every day.

And there comes a time when I am feeling

as windblowed as the apples

in the Shenandoah.

And there goes I who then again began

tho what does this Mrs. Begin?

(she says I am)

And cast down me wretched

sinner unto thee I am

slightly different from

a corpse at a funeral

in that I am less made up

but made up worse.

Who I thereby did appoint myself

but forgot which was mirror.

I stand stabbed with wrench piss

rabid at the counter

matter of things in the room

with which I

identify.

Somewheres crossed up in hot

antartic mountains

they live backwards together.

Whose feet then were backwards

whose feet were needing shoes

so badly in 1964 that millions

virtual millions of shoes were

sent to “Appalachia Virginia”

for they were too poor—“backward.”

America glared haughtily at

local shoe burnings that Christmas.

But I’m not antarctical

nor hypo

thetic.

My mind gleams like the fangs

of a viper in white heat

dying to sink my teeth into

the throat of something wrong.

Copyright Credit: Philip Jenks, “Hypothetical Antipodes, Judgment” from On the Cave You Live In. Copyright 2002 by Philip Jenks. Reprinted with the permission of Flood Editions.

Source: On the Cave You Live In (Flood Editions, 2002)