LITMIR.BIZ

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should be enough of me for me. No, three.

       They might not easily apprehend, but they can do,

       and doing’s the battle I get them to attend.

      To send them out with grocery lists and day-to-days;

       milk, bread, whatever I yen for between bread, they’ll even

       plate it carefully so I can keep on teasing out this stuff.

      Parties, several at once, they drink like cops

       filling late-month quotas, engage the feckless

       literati with The Phaedrus while I seduce their wives.

      That means course enrolment. Tuition. Tough;

       I learn to play guitar unburdened during

       their job interviews. Finally fangle origami.

      It’s a bit like being God, seeing myself from behind,

       askance in the way you can’t but want to. The sum

       of our actions define me while they live my lives

      as though committing crimes. Lately we don’t look

       each other in the eye. They’re not reading dictionaries

       in the off hours. Unfashionably late, on the skive

      at the local, making fools of me. Unviable.

       Soon and earlier than they think, with such retrograde

       expectancy, they’ll drown in the last air left them.

      So it’s a waiting game. Time for a fresh start; tonight

       I’ll hit the town and rake the coals they’ve left. I am

       going to wear my favourite shirt, the brown one. Or am I.

      Cyclops

      There are envelopes with plastic windows,

       they won’t stop searching for you. Feeling owed,

       when the last shopper’s off the streets in bed,

       your late carnations on the kitchen table fed

       with 7-Up for perk, the kids asleep unwashed,

       each blind eye will throw another unabashed

       glance, and find nobody but the television left on

       long after the collector had rung the bell and waited,

       his watch face, and his own, unmoving, wan.

       Not that there was much else he anticipated.

      Dialectic Concerning the Deity’s Benevolence

      The bus is moving awfully slowly. Has it slowed down?

       You know, of course, if it continues to move this slowly

       we’ll have to get off and take a cab. I feel that the bus driver

       indicated through his body language that we’d arrive at

       the route 12 connection, though he never did verbalize this.

      Jonathan, you have to stop focusing on the bus,

       it’s something you can’t control, and you’re causing

       yourself unnecessary stress because of it. Try to

       think of something else.

      I know, it’s just very difficult to stop, when I can’t tell

       whether the bus driver understands that the bus needs

       to be at the connection to bus 12 at 4:00 p.m.

      Jonathan, please try to think of something else. The bus

       and the bus driver are beyond your control. He needs to rest

       at the main stops in order to keep to his schedule, so that

       people who are expecting him at a specific time

       don’t miss the bus because he’s gone too quickly.

      I know, but it’s very hard. It’s difficult to stop. At least

       my obsession will stop in, oh, six weeks or so. Maybe

       he’s prone to slowing down through this section of his route.

       He may be inclined to do that.

      Jonathan, please stop thinking about the bus.

       Why not try to think about more constructive things,

       or more pleasant things, like the sunshine?

      Yes, the sunshine is all around me. The sunshine is blah.

       Every time I look up, the sun is there. But this bus is still waiting

       at a stop, and while the bus driver may be inclined to do that,

       we will very likely miss our connection to bus 12,

       unless we get off now and get a cab.

      Jonathan, stop it right now. You have to stop

       obsessing about these things beyond your control.

      Yes, I know, but it’s very difficult for me to stop

       once I’ve begun thinking about how we need

       to get to the connection for bus 12. I know

       I’ll stop when … perhaps the bus only appears to be

       going more slowly than it once was, though in fact

       it’s travelling at exactly the speed it needs to be travelling.

      Jonathan, the more you say it’s difficult for you

       to stop thinking about something, the more difficult

       it becomes for you to stop thinking about it.

      But we have to connect with the 12 at 4:00 p.m,

       and it’s 4:00 p.m. now, and he’s been idling here

       at a minor stop for an inordinate amount of time.

       In all likelihood the bus driver has stopped here

       at this minor stop rather than the main stop up ahead.

       Perhaps he’s stopped here to wait rather than the next stop.

       You don’t think he’ll stop up ahead to wait again, do you?

       We’ve been waiting at this stop for quite a long time now.

       Excuse me. Excuse me, bus driver.

      Jonathan! Stop that immediately. You are not going to start

       questioning the bus driver about his decisions and the job

       he’s doing. It embarrasses me and insults him.

      But I just want to discover why he’s waiting

       at this minor stop. For all of the waiting we’ve done

       we could have been downtown by now, and we

       wouldn’t have missed our connection with bus 12.

      He’s doing everything he does for a reason, and it is not

       necessarily all related to our needs specifically. Do you think

       you know his job better than he does?

      Well, I don’t know …

      Have you ever driven a bus before?

       Do you think you could do a better job?

      I don’t know. I mean, did you get a look at him?

      First, myself. Then her, for it will always end with her, no matter how I may deviate in the telling. Where better to begin than the ergo sum, that essential component of so simple yet decisive a formula. For you see, in order to clarify the sordid, cloudy motives of my actions you must understand the me-ness of them. Le moi. The my. The mind. Did I say mind?

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