The Final Voicemails - Max Ritvo

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focus your fingers on feeling it,

      you cannot mistake yourself for the animal,

      who cannot feel; you never cut yourself

      if you give your life to the blood you shed.

      4

      I know you’ve been waiting for disintegration,

      but it just doesn’t seem to be coming.

      I need to go out to gather some berries.

      No more meat: I’ve adopted your diet.

      All this time, I thought my shedding

      would expose a core,

      I thought I would at least know myself,

      but these mild passions, all surface, keep erupting now

      like acne—or like those berries on a bush.

      Don’t ask me to name them—

      I’ve never been that kind of guy.

      Red berries—sour, sticky.

      If you really want to know,

      come here, just try them.

      Red as earth,

      red as a dying berry,

      red as your lips,

      red as the last thing I saw

      and whatever next thing I will see.

      THE SOUNDSCAPE OF LIFE IS CHARRED BY TINY BONFIRES

      Two bedtimes ago, through my window,

      I heard a cat get eaten.

      As the cat split, it sounded like

      a balloon string put to scissors

      to make curls so the birthday boy

      would smile extra wide.

      Last night, by the same window,

      I heard mostly my breath, inside of which

      was a small baby suckling

      my air for his milk.

      When I bolted upright, the baby

      grew up into a carpenter,

      nailing his brains into the side of my lung

      to babyproof the light switch.

      Flip the switch and it lights

      a picture of my emaciated, sore-ridden bum

      for my breath to laugh at.

      Why is my breath so unlike yours?

      My ears? Why do I only hear such unnatural things?

      Although, come to think of it, death is completely natural.

      I’m just exasperated. Everywhere life-sounds

      swarm this, our shared pond, like mating turtles.

      Cars whoosh, schmoozers hum,

      snakes spit poison, Martin and Martina say yes

      and sob and hold, but my ears fill up instead

      with eggshells cracked by the bumbling parents.

      I cleaned my left ear out,

      but my nail cut the drum.

      It filled with water

      and is deaf for now.

      I’m leaving the right one dirty. No sudden changes.

      Keep everything dry. Let it figure out a way to heal itself.

      And me: just practice living with yourself deaf.

      Sometimes your brain is as unwelcome

      as muscles or guns. It’s obvious to others. Maybe even

      everyone. Don’t wish for anything. Don’t get organized.

      Don’t buy a book. Don’t go to bed early.

      Seek out beige, in foodstuffs and landscapes.

      Chew gum if you’re overwhelmed.

      You’re in this alone. That means there’s nobody to stop you.

      You’re almost at the finish line.

      But first, you have to pick a finish line.

      DELPHI

      Everyone asks you what the god thinks—

      I want to know what you think.

      Behind the temple, a short lady

      bends in terror over a shallow pond’s edge.

      I tell her if she wants opinions

      she has to get to the other side

      and undress—a bamboo hedge

      will tastefully obscure her

      —peach and coconut flashes

      behind vegetable prison bars—

      that the prison is the mind,

      that the pond is what we call thought.

      She’s not so short her hair

      would get muddy—

      only the washable robes

      and sandals.

      I get into the pond and point out a path of rocks,

      and my bald head too,

      so she may step across.

      I tell her to think of my bald head

      as a squeaky, dense pill

      of white medicine.

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