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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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