Not a Living Thing (poem)

Not a Living Thing

Now you believe it, repeat it

But cautious, or not cautious…either

Cross what might be judgment in a mind so possessed

with Fear of Daddy and a dog’s hierarchy, severed by sex

You’d like, with a laugh, your grimace of apology

Which has never been that

To be a powerful, persistent foe

To be a victim, too precious to pursue

Searching history, we won’t find the answer

Quite

She, or any child born helpful

Pleased by praise and work to do

Cares for plants and animals because

a simple one takes love with love

Everything she’s given charge of safe and fed

Someone, call him John, a friend

He calls himself, says yes, no, the info was good

Offers to be on his watch, make sure others get

Maybe the symptoms fade with time, think I’ve read they might

I am a doctor, or a man of security, or a secret DARPA researcher

Think of what it means to win a grant, to be employed

A paucity of dark adventure native here in choice

(Me play on your predilections, make you paranoid)

Can be repaired, the Magnavox, your young soul prisoned

in a Lucy sitcom chiding rising star Wayne Newton

a vigil-shrine holds place in your garage

Both that, and the kick-and-scream you manage

against the end you plump

More for parents, neighbors, than yourself, but

still you like for old folks early deaths

Old tickers fibrillating

Grandpa shoveling snow, sudden, can’t be helped

Not bones in yellow flesh kept alive with a drip

Not a Living Thing

The Marigold Bowl

Confess

(2020, Stephanie Foster)