the problem with having too much
space in the morning
to air your thoughts
is that you have to have more
thoughts. this is
as natural and irrefutable
as folding bedsheets
at eight a.m. alone
only to unfurl them
at eight p.m., still
alone, with barely
a clap of fabric
to acknowledge the latitude
.
20080208:1017

In this world of hierarchies,
I guess we all need something beneath us.
– Jonathan Mooney, The Short Bus

almost american
.
you can’t coax an orange to grow
the way you can a migrant worker to
climb two stories into a tree of
thorns, atop a ladder nestled in
insecurity. you can also convince
him to stay up there until he picks
a nearest full ninety-nine-
pound sack, and then you can press him
into repeating himself sixty, seventy,
or eighty times – depending
on the fairness of
sky – and by nightfall
you can stuff forty-nine
dollars into his pocket and one
juicy orange into each of ours
.
20080208:1212
y

john bowe excerpt