5. MINESWEEPER (MINDSWEEPER)

A boisterous young child blows a gasket on a Pogo Stick.
     His mother loses her heels raising a fuss, a blitzkrieg rolling
with the punches, the boy’s rear-end upended as he kept
     bouncing like a slinky while being ripped to shreds
like damaged woodwork. “You ain’t worth chicken fat!”
     she screamed. I held my tongue like I did that time I drove by
a family in a parking lot; the mother beating her daughter
     over the head with closed fists. I was a closed-mouthed
casketlipped serpent & I’m ashamed of that. An abomination.
     Famished & slain. “Lemon squash.” I want to bathe my eyes off
with divine soap. Lacunae Lake, backing up from the tea kettle—
     let it whistle! “Don’t despair,” a voice said, “life is full of strange twists.”
I want to be somewhere else, burning brightly like a sacred flame.
     A pampered caveman. An extroverted Marco Polo who introduced
the Italians to pasta after having discovering it in China.
     “Nothing new.”  Cool Whip New World. I’m poised & poisonous,
walking through “charged air.” Opaque pumpkinseeds.
     Globs of didactic yipping. “Cuba’s open now. Go to Cuba.”
I’m just pussyfooting around & the days are tightened around
     me like toboggans. An alienated alien or progeria? I’m susceptible
to a hypnotic trance. I’m stuck to what you don’t say.
     Landslides are bringing my reflection to life.