Cleaning Myself Up Poem by RIC BASTASA

after a series of
circumlocutions like i were an acrobat
in a Chinese show

i come back
to where i am
to being an island again

on a river bank without
a boat

on two separate distant banks without
a bridge

we have depths too just like
dark blue lakes

back to this choice of
isolation
on the thinking that i am different

that both of us
must not be hurt unnecessarily
because they are very different from us

as this time they are
toasting glasses of champagne to each other
celebrating life
and enjoying a banquet under their
lucky stars

back to writing and you are back
into computations

how many seconds are there in a boring day?
how many insignificant days make up a year?

and then it is Christmas
you remind me on day

after i come out from the bath room giving myself another shower
to freshen myself up as i shake off the water from my
white hair
cleaning myself
shaving off those extra hair
in my nose and
armpits


busy, busy
as though i am a miner with black dusts of coal all around my body
twenty days underground