never set your soul on the dining room table


To set your soul on the dining room table
during formal gatherings is impolite and
will bake the tablecloth. You’ll experience
days on which you feel you did not receive
the memorandum about the exodus. Under
those dire circumstances, I would find the
nearest ice scraper and remove the frost
from your beach umbrella. Recently, I’ve
taken to yelling “Hoda Kotb!” when I am
jostled by rebellious currents, as I am too
“9AM motivated” to exclaim “Kathie Lee!”
I know self-respect even if it won’t respond
to my e-mails. 85-minute TV disaster movie
science: time is a quantifiable subject, not a
quantifiable object. The bats over Baton Rouge
shriek their compliance, fanging down on quinoa
and Cannon Films, understanding the hard-boiled
man’s paradise is the harmonica man’s gluten,
understanding the chameleons who live on planets
of rubber eraser, understanding that, when you’re
down to one Bee Gee, you let the caged birds fly,
as the elegance of infinity is in every pinky swear of secrecy.

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