This is an edited version of the poem that first appeared in Fountain of Youth (Vine Leaves Press, 2016), p: 75–76.
Leave your allegiance out of it.
I will not participate in your coven
no matter how hard you try.
For I was born from the womb of a barren mother,
who doesn’t even know my name,
but who has already prepared
my grave and mass.
Tell me what you will gain
from initiating me.
I am allergic to instructions.
And I have horrible aim.
My toes cannot bear the scraping of cotton,
and we both know how you value that
and silk and gold.
And I am sorry I cannot remember a simple statement,
for when I utter the words out loud, I blank
out, and when I awake again,
I remember nothing but the pain
in my abdomen.
Resources for me are witty jokes
that make people squirm, and laugh,
even though they tried to hold it in.
But like a mischievous fart
the laugh wiggles out of the anus
and, like a convict’s head, peeps out of bondage.
Brother,
for you it is something else,
and I tell you now to leave me
out of it, for I have an appointment
with a vet and we both know
what you do with other people’s pets.
