It Has Been There All Along Poem by Shikhandin Shikhandin

It Has Been There All Along

An old anger glints with lust

This Earth in the void
They say is resting
On four elephants that are standing
On a turtle swimming
In the void

If you break the egg it will splinter
In space without a sound

And I want to go down
And slaughter those four elephants
And, smash the turtle's shell
Scattering its meat
Beyond Kuiper's edge

And, then I would like to return
To crush this earth
Between the two palms of my hands
That will take on mammoth shapes
Like the haunches of Atlas, and
Water will be squeezed out
From my knuckles

I feel like doing that today

Just like that day years ago
When I saw this bald baby
All blisters and sores on his head, and
His beggar mother cooing and clucking
All over him, and making such a sticky jam
Of her love
For that obscene monstrosity of a baby
That I just felt like pulling on a pair of gloves
And, crushing its bald monkey head between
The two palms of my hands

And the thought was so real

I puked all over
My white school uniform
And had to return home in disgrace.

(First published in Unlikely Stories USA)