Epilogue
By Eirene Gentle
There’s no dry cleaning because I’ve forgotten washing. It rained
last night, surely that’s enough. The rain splashed down, surely that
will do it. There’s soil on my tongue but the mushrooms won’t
breed. Even a tortoise stops now and then to rest. I kicked 15
ghosts and none taste of TV. I’m the patient in whom a surgical
tool has been buried. I nourish it like a child but it refuses to grow.
It’ll cut its way out the way worms escape a dying mouse. They’ll
find the scalpel in the dirt and think my soul is released. I have
many pockets to keep in the rain. I have slippery skin.
I have a dry-cleaning receipt and a good memory for fables.
It’s comedy right? Isn’t that why we’re laughing.
Bio: Eirene Gentle writes, mostly little, usually from Toronto.
Author’s Note: This came from that feeling of near desperation, of trying so hard in an environment where nothing works, nothing makes sense. Then something turns inside all that. You stop trying to steer the impossible, stop taking responsibility for all this mess. This isn’t your sickness. It’s a defiant poem in its way. It’s freedom. You’re not the problem, you were never the problem and it’s fine, really. It’s funny. It’s horrible. It’s everything.
