Michael Haeflinger
I’ve done cartwheels over subway cars,
spotted rashes on pocketed handkerchiefs,
tanned the daylight, ground
the sky into manure / I’ve
lit the match on the wood end,
forced it through the bottom
of the candle, pedaled
with my hands, steered with my nose
and fell over, once into a streetsign,
once, a guitar broke
my fall / I’ve coasted the Brown Line
hanging on a lawn chair, ate
at a dinner table on the S42,
brought a van load from Cincy
to D-Town to Illinoise to Leipzig
to Berlin and I could unload six more /
I’ve put more quarters in jukeboxes
than Fountain Square, burned
twenty-four hours with the blink
of somebody else’s eye,
ridden a horse backwards
into town, gave up on mountains
but reconsidered ocean,
chopsticked public parks, pierced
hundreds of unpopable eggs, dirt
sledded over calendar pages, broke
bones to pass time, I’ve crept across
traffic faster than others walked /
stopped myself with calves,
went over the bar at people
walking by, counted all
the ankles in the world, twice,
spanked the lunch
out of a dog, pushed a cat
around while sleeping,
played the same song twice,
used lots of names in vain /
I’ve made omelets of couch
cushions and mints / I’ve unscrewed
the light bulbs in the sun
and shook them for signs of life /
I’ve cleaned my fingernails
with ink, black
and blue / let it be heard /
let it be heard, o! /
let it be heard
