Poetry is not a luxury
A poem inspired by Joy Harjo
DESP
COMPAR 0.001 REIT
CUSIP 29444U700
“Need the cost basis…”
The accountant’s words
raise fear in me.
They slide off,
find no purchase.
I can’t
grasp them.
They are senseless,
of course.
But more than that.
They hurt, they burn
me.
I have no idea,
of course,
what she’s saying.
I resist knowing.
I resist “language”
such as this.
I guard against it.
I am afraid
of infection.
Is it contagious?
I want to know.
Like my desk,
the desk where I
“go to work,”
to my work-a-day,
salaried job,
the job that has
nothing,
whatever,
to do with me.
I need an
amulet,
a “soft pouch of
corn pollen,”
a medal,
a shield,
something to ward
off the ugly
in life.
The humdrum,
the lifeless,
the scary.
The desk —
I can’t write
there.
I need a second
desk —
one of wood
not glass,
one of softness,
stillness,
patina,
where the sacred
can alight.
A corner of the
universe
designed to
catch the
whispers, a
corner like a
web, a dream
catcher, some
kind of apparatus
that allows
the unspeakable,
unsayable,
ineffable
beauty, pain,
divinity, and magic
of the world
in.
