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Before what happens happened
it happened to someone else.
The Juarez puppet flicked its ugly tongue
out—the old carved vaquero with the forked beard.
Before what happened, I had the purpose
of hiding candy bars. Howdy Doody
hissed beneath trains, green and yellow tractors,
to let him breathe. Born, spine tapped, a man's fist
in my stomach—I am stomach. Mother—
pharmacological uptake system.
Ruddy neighbor boy cussed and beat me for living.
Skull rattle—soap-rock—jerky bathroom haircut—
uncapped handlebar fused its rust with mine—
prime grievous nuisances (the memory of).
Transpire means to breathe through—become known—
not to come to pass.
No open windows, never dusting—chicken pox vesicles
lined my dresser (right to left, by age) until disintegrated.
Limit missed each year without failing:
32 days absent: tardy, here, absent, absent.
On the gym floor—fast evaporating
body outlines of sodium and oil.
The guts of twelve candy bars shaped into a mutated apple,
eaten like an apple.
Before what happened happens
nothing happened.
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