" smudge "
"It could be a smudge from the inky thumb
Of a slack X-ray technician"
-- Jim Carroll, "Radiation"
The X-ray could've been anyone's yet it had
his lungs on it. Waiting here on a table familiar
with mortality, the unknown is denounced--
laid bare by the scalpel of sight. He exhales
during the prognosis and positive assurance
the blemish is only a technician's thumb
smudge on print. What he desires now is
a cigarette and the fetid comfort of nicotine
arms wrapped around his being. A smile unravels
lips across an arid mouth as he anticipates
telling the wife while driving home, eagerness
slowly coaxing the car past eighty. What he
realizes before careening into a mother's SUV
is that gods make lousy role models for humans.
That in the crusade to parry our inherent destiny
mistakes always slip through defenses. If this
were a movie, this is the point where the film
skips off the reel track and we deploy popcorn
to screen as weapon of mass-destruction
where our last visceral image of reality is of
human embracing metal, as if faith in the
inanimate is the only thing left worth dying for.
© 2002 Treezaa DarkScribe (DS) - Ian Marlowe
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