Untitled 13

When asked “what kind of bag would you like?”
Choose carefully.

Not unlike Bracken's Vengeful Birdman:
If you ask for paper, I will give it to you.
If you ask for plastic, I will give it to you.

Ask me to “surprise you”, and I will elaborate for you in painstaking detail
the litany of your lovers' most cruel infidelities. 

Ask for a duffel bag stuffed with money,
as so many do,
my lip will curl back in contempt, 
as I point a single, bony finger at you
and glare until the Loss Prevention Gargoyles
swoop down from their perches 
sink their talons into your shoulders deep as Chopra 
and carry you shrieking into the deli freezer.

Would you dare ask for the leathern saddlebag of the elders, or the velveteen satchel? I think not!
You are as far beneath such opulence as verges beneath the coming storm.

Believe me.
I know one or two things about “beneathness”,
Which is to say, the relative verticality of things.

Do you think as a child playing soldiers in the attic
I saw myself pushing 40 and still at work as 
a cashier in Bellevue, bagging groceries for 
narrow-faced software engineers and Somerset moms?

Sir, I did not.

I cannot master the lightning crackling down my spine,
so I abase myself in stained aprons,
crawl hand and knee down the beer aisle,
sop Men's Room Red into paper toweling
ripped from a package luridly captioned
“thick & thirsty”.

“Thick & thirsty”, indeed. 

“Thick and thirsty”, like the padding between my legs each days
that helps break the stiff neck of my pride,

(crinkle)

(I am a Good Boy: 
I do what I'm told. 
It feels good to obey,
I want to be a Good Boy.
Obedience is pleasure.
I want to be a Good Boy
I like being a Good Boy.)

I been down so long, you could fluff me up 
and rest your head on my belly,
softer than memory foam parties
or a buckwheat Qlippoth.

As I hand you your receipt,
flash my best Aaron Burr,
and inform you per my instructions that
partwaydownyourreciptyouwillfindalinktoasurveryifyoufillitoutyou'llgetfiftybonusfuelpointsandwe'dreallyappreciateit
do not tell me to have a good “one”.

Sir, you forget yourself!
I assure you, each of my ones
is always of the most extraordinary caliper:
why, I am having a good “one” as I stand before you right now!
You need concern yourself not with the state of my “ones”.