San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Jeffry Jensen 

ROUNDING UP

too too too intimate for even murder, foul play, or scandal of the highest order

it could could could have been anybody, even a relative, a neighbor, a street vendor with
everyday values and everyday parts, rich halves for the taking taking taking
pluck pluck pluck went the people right off the platform of death, Heaven, Hell,
anywhere with ice cream for Jesus and a dose of dust dust dust for the day laborers who
want statues to take take take vacations for them, a hero with a drinking problem
wreckage of a generation, shrinking in a pool, longer than a libretto trampled, absorbed,
sewn into the fabric of war war war where dentists take up finger painting
I am not a footprint, a rabbit, a cheerleader with dimples, I am not a crowd crowd crowd
looking for an organic pavement to have a personal moment on lawns lawns lawns going
heavy on pomp and circumstance, raise a black hole to the floating librarian in the room
who cares for the scraps scraps scraps of paper in the pockets of porn stars
flesh flesh flesh is so homemade and very communal in a London drizzle, don’t let the
beasts beasts beasts put bandages on Darwin’s forehead before I trace my own lungs for
posterity find charm charm charm in the subconscious astronauts who smell the flowers
where forests once stood tall and are flustered flustered flustered  by jazz riffs and cell
phone messages that were generated by the children children children who wobble out of focus