make weigh
Catherine Benitez, August 2009
try as he might
he couldn’t understand it.
the gappy outlines
the smudged detail
made her suitable
only at a distance.
“amateur” he semi whispered
in an exhale of navajo
white. her personality
was a gallery of imprecise
manifestos. all anger
warped into a palpably
deluded semblance of
non fiction. her palette
her pattern pairings
her vague ethnic allusions
betrayed a lack
of education.
of self discipline.
of true understanding.
the kind that comes from
numbers and measurements.
her inner pendulum
swished a rhythm more
alike than she had any idea
but rough shod and oblivious
to its monotonous pathos.
her anecdote
gelatinous. constructed without
statistical backbone. beginning
middle
and end she was
blissfully unaware
of the rules
and so unsure of how
to break them
in a ways that proved
she knew them
but hate them
but love them
as he did. and this was
future. this was
what is good.
what is real
what is improvement
over the standard
he’d restrained his
pen to incremental
iambics to protect
to validate the principals
of a perfect system
he was now the error
being erased to make
room for something larger
without dimension
that creates more questions
than it answers
that villainizes each fiber
of the fabric now
sagging off the bones
of a child
still grunting and wildly
motioning
its frustrations
just below.
Cat is co-owner, editor and art director of the killpoet press. She sleeps with a bat and a bible at her bedside. www.killpoet.com
