old year’s resolution…
Yes, a martyr’s life for me. Those six letters a timeless stone
in sanity’s boot evoking images of recalcitrant souls ablaze
on pages of old books. But defining the word as death wish
tells the paucity of the definer’s mind; the contrast between
desire and willingness as sharp as the narwhal’s ivory horn.
Yes, I am willing to die for wife and children but I will not
die for the choking nuisance of jot-tittled camels and gnats.
I would stumble in a frozen stupor through a soybean field
to discover at last where the deer sleep but I refuse to lose
one wink by the trumpeted bray of elephants and donkeys.
Yes, I would bleed myself and slack the thirst of a few friends
with blood from my shoe but I refuse the bitter wine saying
life is a problem to be fixed, a disaster that can be averted if
only I allow myself to be led by a ring in the nose, the galled
guarantee of an easy life by Friday and a heaven of daisies.
I am willing to die for the colors of dusk and the smell of her
skin and for plastic creches covered in snow. I am willing to
die for corned beef hash, jack-o-lanterns, the gorgeous vigor
of hollyhocks, and the faintest motions of the summer wind.
No, I won’t recant. So go ahead this day, light such a candle.
For nuance and ice-cold beer.