at any time
and now is such a time
the one gift I can offer is a key
a key to free
your own exclusive brand of liberty
but if it doesn’t seem to fit
or shines too small and insignificantly
or gives you minor unsettling e.c.t.
if it doesn’t match the colour of your daytime eye
and cracks the smooth complexion of your night
if it threatens you with excessive conspicuousness
or the opposite prospect of invisibility
kicks up the dust upon those near‑forgotten files
marked destitution
helplessness and vagrancy
begets a fear of knowing
you’re on your own
in hostile darkening forestry
smiles as it whispers in your ear
the finite prophecy
mocks your careful self‑sufficiency
and gnaws with tiny teeth
at the teetering ideal
of what you’d like to be
evaporates the dreams you’ve nourished
through proud adversity
alienates your closest friends
as fast as cockroach cake or hemlock tea
has you reaching for the covers
the curtains
or the front door key
and fantasising over meat
and kitchen cutlery
then wont you see
that gift is really hit‑man first degree
with a contract out on self‑importance
the commodity
like Solomon
we could entitle common vanity
Belo Horizonte, Brazil. ’86.
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