I do not offer what I bring to this table
What I bring to this table is of my own concern
Do not busy yourself with my business
for we’ve far too little time to tarry
now speak

and tell me
precisely
what it means

from the effigy burning in your front yard
to the bumper sticker on your refrigerator
to the love you tried to show but
never really had to give

Speak loud and slowly
I’m hard of hearing in my years of listening
to the stereo blasting far too loud.

I always thought it funny
that you could talk shit in stereo.

Trees and the like protrude so haphazardly,
sometimes,
and I don’t know if I can stand for it.

Axe and hatchet and saw and here we
go, to lumber-jacking. Sure to
clear the forest floor of everything
even remotely forested.

After all, we don’t have time
for all this touchy-feely shit,
and the deep green hues of the
high-top foliage only
makes to block the sun.

Or more usually in this season,
shades of gray.

You don’t know what it’s like
to have to clear-cut the woods
around your existential spaces.

You don’t know what it’s like,
but you will.