Apocalyptic Rabbit Speaks

Something 10^th About You

I watch you out on the street

and you move in slow motion

in the cold morning air,

and the little pink fingers of your scarf

drum on the back of your jeans in the wind.

There’s a part of me that’s half-squirrel;

taking you in but unconcerned

about your morning commute:

I have nuts to gather

and telephone lines to size up for clambering upon.

I watch you in the park

because the Sun in my eyes

made me shade the land with my hand

and wow, there you are across the grass.

I watch you on the Central Avenue bus;

I’m nothing but a gaseous vapor

draping myself over and around strangers

just to get close, just to get a glimpse of you

and I observe you

as though you were my patient, etherizing me on a table,

as though you did not have a job of importance somewhere,

as though you were not a respected reporter,

as though you were not a member of the President’s Special Panel.

I measure you one way and then the other;

I size you up and use my own criteria

to determine your worth;

to determine how long I would like to speak with you;

whether you would be attractive in the nude or no.

I make comparisons between you and others;

I’m pretty busy, doing all of this in the space of a few seconds.

You walk past me to your seat and I analyze what you have on;

every article of clothing under the microscope of my very distracted me.

I hire and fire you depending on how many extra holes you have given yourself;

so much depends on the color of your hair

and where you have decided to place tattoos

AUDITION FOR ME.

In the time it takes for you to place your backpack on the seat beside you;

I have made sixteen decisions about you and everything else:

I do not like where you’ve got that star tattoo

I would have put it on the top of your right foot

and not on the inside of your left wrist;

whatever you’re wearing smells good and I do not mind that you wear that perfume;

you have way too many pins on your backpack;

you lost me by owning a pink-an-gray camouflage backpack

but you found me again with that black mesh choker thing you have around your neck;

I guess you found me wondering about necks and kisses there.

You smell like you have been smoking before getting on the bus

which I don’t like because that smell will get on me and my clothes somehow

but I forgive your smoking because of glory of your chest

and I know it’s kind of boorish to say a thing like that

but anything’s better than being disingenuous when you don’t mean to be

and the book you have in your hand has an Oprah-approved emblem on the cover

but I let that go when I notice your earbuds are blue and shaped like starfish—

I have decided not to worry about this afternoon;

I have decided never to speak again until spoken to

and even then only to say maybe one or two words;

I’ve made nine decisions about you

before you ever turned your head in my direction

but there is something strange, something 10^th about you

and I’m afraid to speak it out loud.

 - March 30, 2009 by Rich Boucher.