Misery Grows in Bunches: A Poem
Misery Grows in Bunches
A lion is a lion because his fur matches the desert. There are antelope and zebra near; he has a mane, claws, he roars; he is a lion. When Adam named these creatures he should have named them all black. He should have expected most to die; plan a reserve of names for things to come later. The father of generations would never have realized he, too, was named, and not by his own doing. At first, he had one other, then two. Adam was Adam because he Was and good and important. I’m sure he never thought another Adam to ever come again. He would never imagine a benign grandfather Adam who sips from a spotted glass of Merlot, a white, gooey film navigating his lips to the rim. He would not realize a marriage to Beth of 50 years should be considered a long time. Adam, never seeing the old man on holiday pour his wine on top of his dinner salad. Confusing what effects of this man make the desert dust-colored, what wilts Eden to rotten mush on cold patches of over-watered dirt. The antelope that gets brought to the dinner plate. What forgets to be violet and mustard, what forgets to be white.
First published in Counterexample Poetics.
