A.J. Gets Ready to Fulfill His Destiny
I want to scare you, I said to the kitten
while I was holding a paintbrush,
I want to make you feel feelings
normally reserved for the movies,
and in this will be the meaning, I think, but
I will think some more on it. And so, I paint
and the kitten wanders away.
I stop painting. I light a cigarette to think
about what I am painting. I haven’t painted
very much yet. The canvas is primed.
The bird in the cage squawks,
and it is feeding time. I think
about skipping their feeding time till the canvas
is filled with the terror I have planned for this world
which is not really terror, but existential love.
I have no idea what I’m painting.
So I feed the animals: the cats, the birds, and I think
on why I’m never home these days. “Asteroids
on the moon”, I say about the wasted time, except, as the years
have gone by I have discovered that I
am remaining I, something I worry
was true of my father, and my one improvement
over the generation’s gap is that I am aware of it.
Squawk, says the bird, meow meow says one cat
and then another cat and then another. Blank blank,
goes the canvas still waiting for a name or paint.
And it says, it’s not like it would take a lot you know.
Look around, the ash, the butts, the soda cans.
You made the room, now paint the canvas. Chop chop.