FALL/ WINTER 2008

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Jéanpaul Ferro
THE WORST OF BOTH WORLDS

On the day you died there was an election,
the green stormy sky turning into a page like
in Ulysses,

first we had the funeral with the priest telling
us all the things God didn’t want us to understand,
I sat there thinking about your hands when
they were young, the beautiful white tan-lines
you had on our honeymoon, the green apple
color of your eyes whenever we went to the
Dolomites in Italy,

Later on that day, I stood there in the election booth,
the maroon curtain closing behind me like this was
all in a scene in Oz somewhere,

A million bytes of electronic media fla shing in
wavelengths through my head: Candidate X to
Candidate Y;

Simulated words, little nuances like this is all sex,
dessert at lunch, a back hand when all you need is
reassurance;

And after I vote for one of the two meteorites,
I go and visit your grave, staring at the fresh
outline of the sod above where you’re buried;

everything in the world mapped to death

as though all of life is a computer simulation;

every candidate a virtual version of our own
death, so we can never go on, forever.

 

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