The Earth Virus

The Earth Virus

You wake up one day and you’re underground.

You’re underground, and you know you’re canopied

far, far above

by papery sunlight, issues, memoranda,

ungiggling pollsters, dickerings and stipulations,

consequences and minutes, inexplicable

convenants of pain. Up there, you’re all decked out

in yourself and and you’re walking around, lying or not lying,

lying and not lying,

transacting your waxy or glossy ambitions, clanking along

in consonants, breathing the powdery vowels.

You know you’re glazed

by gazes, including the one in the mirror, including the other

one in the mirror, as welcome as war.

You let people down. Even when they reason

conclusively that you don’t let them down,

you let them down.

You know they will not allow you

not to show up.

But you’re also down here, down in rich strata, phyllo of sparkles and dust,

small rocks, chips of erotically painted porcelein, bits of bone

long ago tested indecisively for strength.

Down here you’re among those things

which chew through themselves to survive,

which pass the very earth through their bodies,

making the issue of residence moot

and mute. You’re in piecemeal mode, dissolving trim, and sinking

into coming ever further apart.

That’s why it’s so hard

to get well. Even as you recover

you’re sinking,

and even after

you’ve recovered you’ve sunk.