Don't Ask/1980
By Jayne Cortez
Don't ask me
who I'm speaking for
who I'm talking to
why I'm doing what I do in
the light of my existence
You rise you spit you brush you drink you
pee you shit you walk you run you work
you eat you belch you sleep you dream &
that's the way it is
In the morning
tap water tasted fishy
coffee sits in its
decaffeinated cup
caca & incense
have a floating romance
& a stale washcloth
will make you smell
doubly stale
so don't get kissed on the cheek
don't get licked on the neck
at 8 a.m.
the trains & buses are
packed with folks farting
their bread & butter farts
the gymnasium
is dominated
by the stench of
hot tennis shoes
& one in the locker room
a few silly-talking
intellectual-looking
coke-drinking
cloth-dropping
paper-littering
spinach-pooting
smug arrogant women wait to
be waited on
& in another locker room
there are odors of
crotches & jock straps
bengay, tiger balm
& burning balls
sweat socks & sweat suits
of body-building
door-slamming
iron-pumping
phlegm-hawking men
all sour & steamy
& wrapped up together
in a swamp of
butt-popping towels
but don't let it
get you down
don't let it
psych you up
Outside the ledges are
loaded with pigeons
clouds are seeded with
homeless people &
lyricism of the afternoon
in a sub-proletarian madman
squatting & vomiting
from his bowels
a brown liquid of death
in front of your house
& it's not happening because of you
those socks don't stink because of me
a bureaucrat is not a jerk because of us
I'm not this way because of them
you're not that way because of me
don't ask about influences
You rise you spit you brush you drink you
pee you shit you walk you run you work
you eat you belch you sleep you dream
& that's the way it is
Jayne Cortez, "Don’t Ask/1980" from On the Imperial Highway. Copyright © 2009 by Jayne Cortez. Reprinted by permission of Hanging Loose Press.
Source:
On the Imperial Highway
(Hanging Loose Press, 2016-09-23)
