(from the Pollywog Papers 1998)
I dug holes for seven bucks an hour. Now I fill them for seven seventy-five with obsolete mothers and fathers. I dug ditches to take human waste away from ugly houses that cost a million dollars.
I dug holes, now I walk wasting humans to the holes, I walk them down pleasantly painted halls where the smell of urine and feces often rises. I lead them toward the holes I dug and gently push them in once they are too tired to roam the halls of this world searching for some moment, any moment from their youth that eludes them now.
Some families react very well, they come and walk with us, they walk their parents with dignity and love into the holes I’ve dug.
But most saw this place, these hallways, the tiny apartments within as a welcome hole in which to dump the waste of their parents. They pushed their parents in the hole of this place and sped the car away from the discomfort of seeing their parents so wrinkled and confused. They shut their ears to the precious life stories of growing up in one bedroom apartments in New York city with seven brothers and sisters. They let a stranger hear of the days without any money, with little food over decaf coffee and ginger snaps, singing:
“Daisy, Daisy Give me your answer do, I’m half crazy all on account of you…”
Walking down the hall hand in hand with a young stranger with short red hair and an awkward smile, toward the holes…
“It won’t be a stylish marriage,
I can’t afford a carriage,
but you’ll look sweet upon the seat,
of a bicycle built for two”
bum bum...
