Everyone was told to stay indoors

The fish were “humaning”

Baiting hooks with Xanax and ******

And other pharmaceuticals to help us get through the day

Working stiffs wanting a little surcease

Found themselves descending through water

To who knows what fate

As pets maybe?

But do we put trout in aquariums?

I made the decision

To stop hydrophobically cowering in my apartment

And set out

Forswearing all chemical crutches

Sad to see too many of my fellow **** sapiens

Getting wet against their will

Footstep 1: It's the biggest mountain in the entire state

Footstep 2: Do I really think I can climb it?

Footstep 3: I bought these boots just to climb it

Footstep 4: Or maybe I should have bought new lungs

Footstep 5: Just start walking forward; just take one step

Footstep 6: Okay so I'm walking, but it's flat ground

Footstep 7: It's going to get harder and more harder

Footstep 8: Still I'm walking forward, it's just eight footsteps

Footstep 9: But still I'm moving, that mountain is waiting

Footstep 10: Don't worry, top of the mountain, be patient

Sittin' in the 50's
Listenin' to the 60's

You mean decades?
Nah.

A series of streets in Manhattan then?
Nope.

Then a weather trend: This week we'll be in the 50's
but next week it's –
Not even.

I'm talking about the help-desk ranch
(Yes that's what they call it and I probably don't want to know why)
Sittin' in the cubicles numbered 50 to 59
with a bunch of guys stolid durable focused

Am I the only one of them listening to the girls in the 60's
Those lilts, those shatters of laughter
(or laughters of shatter)

Hearing it begin with “Girl!...”
And a punctuation mark and three dots
Never smelled so nice off the page
Never promised so much

And then:
“Thank you for calling IT support. This is Quadnishia. Is this a new or an existing issue?”
And then the spell is broken.

Who would want to read the poem that I wrote?

Might it be that man in the red party hat...

(And don't ask me what a red party hat looks like

It's just something I made up and I'm not even

Sure

If it's a party hat that's red or a hat for a red party.)

So really who would want to read the poem that I wrote?

Maybe that woman I saw running in six-inch-high heels in the morning

And then ambling in tennis shoes in the evening

And actually I never have seen a woman like that

But if she does exist

Maybe she would want to read the poem that I wrote.

We got out of the car and went to a field that I oddly thought might have made a good place to play baseball or football or soccer even though I never play sports anymore or never really did even as a kid.

I sat on my haunches and...
wondered what was I going to say to her in that long thick silence.

It was night and I heard no cries or calls of animals or machines.

I hoped that Gina wondered the same thing.

I remembered as a boy getting so bored I’d dig a hole that looked something like this         and then I would fill it up again so it looked somethinglikethis just for something to do.

I wondered if Gina had ever dug a hole in her life.

Admittedly, it was a strange thing to wonder.

We live in a town with an Indian name
An Indian name from a language that's no longer spoken
An Indian name from a people who may no longer exist

Sometimes someone will say what the name of our town means in the Indian language
And we'll marvel at that
More likely we'll just laugh

Because our town is nothing like the way the Indians said it is
It's a place with a lot of fast-food restaurants
And it's a place with a lot of sit-down restaurants where you can't buy anything that costs less than $40

If we leave this town
Sometimes we'll talk about how we're from this town
Or how we're going back to this town
And then when we get back there maybe
We'll get a call from a telemarketer who can't pronounce the name of our town
That's not how you say it we'll say
It's...

And that will be one of the only times that a word from this Indian language is ever said

I'm happy to have a fulfilling job
The only time I'm not happy
Is when I consider how so many
Have unfulfilling jobs to
Support my fulfilling job

Like for instance
There's the guy who shines my shoes twice a day
That's because I have to kick things
And I need good-looking shoes for that
He shines my shoes with a smile
On his face or somewhere on his body
But I can't believe he finds his job as fulfilling as I find my job
When I get to kick something

There's also the guy who looks after my health
At first he was just my taster
Making sure no one poisons me
But then his duties were extended
Up to including reading
The Possible Side Effects
Of all my medications

And there he saw it one day:
And said
“It says here that one possible side effect of this medicine is the delusion that you have a fulfilling job when you don't have such a fulfilling job.”
And then it all went ****

And I found myself back to working an unfulfilling job
Now I just hope I can remember how to do it
Because a long line of angry customers is forming somewhere in relation to where I am positioned now