I’ve been grinding my teeth again,
my bike helmet filled with floral goo.
Think of this as a dream if it helps
and I know I try to. Ghosts in eddies,
accusatory driftwood, squirrels eating
the birdhouse, the air tolling of roasted
meat. It’s stuck 10 o’clock on the draped
statue’s visage, the crossing-guard of
emptiness waving me on against the light.
Think of this as happening in a graveyard
if you must, a funny farm I’d rather.
The monster on his iceberg hopes for a remake,
he has a ready jingle, a yen for a peppier
end. The stars are completely pulled apart
but that’s not our job. Bats skein
from under the bridge as the planet cranks
into evening. Not our job either.
Unless we increase our gravity,
Daffy Duck will surely tug us into the sky.
Think of Daffy as a parade balloon but
enough about you. I’ve been at it so long
I don’t know what’s preparation and what’s
just ordinary maintenance of life.
One must aspire toward weightlessness
to enter the sky yet be resistant
to accentuate the tug, the whole do-not-
go-gentle-into-the-dark stuff. I
do not know which to prefer, the feeling
of letting go or the rope burns
making it, along with a few priors,
impossible for me to accept public office
although I protest the current policy
regarding human composting. Every citizen
should have the right to grow a cherry tree
from his or her chipper-shredded skull.
Little else is known of me save my brief
adult life in various sowing circles
and swimming holes. At times, on summer lawns,
I appeared to be in conversation with fireflies.
—Dean Young
Dean Young holds the William Livingstone Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas, Austin.
