I want to make people bounce up and down.
Who am I to seek such delight? The light gray
cements laugh at me. I told a joke and it didn’t
fly well, so I feel rather sheepish in front of the punks

and the 90%-tattoo-adorned hippy freak, but I feel
justified somehow in my attempt to brighten this
sullen day, as if I have a right to transform people’s
lives, as if I didn’t make up this landfill overwhelming

my brain with a desire to melt into dirty floor tiles,
sticking to the edges, slithering into that sewer
which keeps begging me to write a story that might
transform people’s lives, but after all, none of the

chuckleheads go to the sewer for illumination. There is
a man in suit and tie even though very few of us work
this day, as though it were not long after the apocalypse,
and we are stupid monkeys, and the gods jerk at our strings,

bellowing all the way in triumphant laughter at all of the
dead who never had a chance to transform much less
get loose from the monkey chains. And the silly bitty lady
J-walks, jiggling her tiny bag of popcorn, feeling delicious.

.