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My Broken Back (Having Slipped on a Cashew)
by Matt Hale
I know how to land when I fall. It only takes
an understanding of balance.
I’d spin
as a boy
and the ground would fall away and I
could lift my feet
feel the rhythm
see the globe
know the truth that we are spinning
and finally
stand still
marching in place
watching everyone else go by.
Good-bye.
Hello, good-bye...
I can fall down stairs
and manipulate the process
plant my palms and
protect my head
as I tumble to the bottom.
I can stand one legged for an hour on a cashew.
Can a baby be
About while all the eating’s going on, with all the
Seething, sucker muscles telling
Heart to stick around to make sure
Eaten bits of wood will end up oozing
Water-babies from my head out my left cashew?
Ugly biting cats chew at my feet
and can’t you help, I’ve little
cash; I’ll owe you
please. I’m eating tree!
I’m here alone
and the dirt should get to sliding
but it isn’t.
And my nose should not be enemy to gravity.
How
did all my liquids get so friendly with the dirt?
I’m starting to worry that my
liquids won’t talk
with each other anymore
and I wonder
at the picture of a car without a roof
without a motor
and it’s small
and I’m driving all alone
and the wheel is split in two at either side.
And I can’t breathe at the ladybug
or reach to scratch my nose
and I’m walking all the while
but the ground just isn’t listening
and all of this distilled into a poem about a cashew.
Like a sneeze: cashew.
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