who reads aloud from a crumbling book
filled with the annotated history of civilization,
with tales of the Schwartzwald, recipes,
children’s cereal jingles, and baseball trivia.
He reads on and his words invade
my eardrums like saw teeth on oak —
Did you know? — The average number of fatalities —
Once upon a time — And the village was no more —
Arsenic tastes like almonds — the fissure spreads
through the wood, squealing, snapping.
He reads on, eroding “what is” with the steady
application of “what if,” time, and pressure.
My Fear is a talker. He tramples interruptions,
filibusters dissent with a phonebook full of failures —
Name, address, cause of embarrassment.
His memory is bookmarked, cataloged, tab-divided.
Cross-referenced under shame.
Cross-referenced under heartbreak.
