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Frivolous Quill

  • Negative Option Billing

    July 31st, 2023

    Columbia House introduced me to Gerald Levert
    in 1991, before methamphetamines replaced cassette

    tapes as the drug of choice for nice, Iowa boys.
    I couldn’t say no to the nice lady on the phone,

    and to this day freeze in the face of the entire
    service industry. Servers, cashiers, mechanics all

    want to know where I want to do and suddenly I’m
    that fox we passed on I-75 caught in a rictus

    of terrified indecision, knowing that things have
    drastically changed, things are bigger, things are

    faster, and I do not understand except that they
    expect an answer, a crossing, at their convenience.

  • The Design of Everyday Things

    July 31st, 2023
    The door is
    already terribly
              heavy,
    its     PUSH
    be-lies
    its     PULL,
    intentionally poorly
              designed
    so that the effort
    equals my give and
    I have none to
    spare     you,
    rushing toward the
              closing gap,
    oranges tumbling from
    your bag.
  • I’m No Mechanic

    July 31st, 2023

    There’s something, I think, a flap
    or flange on a plane that lets its
    fuel tanks hold hands across the
    wingspan of a particularly strenuous
    crossing, and I think about that
    flap whenever I make you laugh, or
    when you order the Chinese take-out,
    and I pick it up.

  • The Fluid Dynamics of Personal Hygiene

    July 5th, 2023

    Once you’ve squozen the recommended
    allotment of shampoo relative to hair-girth

    into your palm, be careful when letting go
    the bottle for its pop-back-reset,

    or the mintfused molecules will panic and,
    with eucalyptous hands, cling to each

    other in a desperate, schlurpy retreat back
    into the globuly hive, leaving only an

    invigorating, sulfite-free residue in the air,
    your hair plastered, and unwashed.

    Like the deep-cleansing morning I spent on the
    front porch with my coffee and my dog and

    suddenly remembered the day my mother changed
    the locks on all the doors and my father,

    and I hadn’t even showered.

  • We All Make Mistakes

    January 5th, 2023

    Dearest Neighbor, I did, indeed, see you
    back into your garbage cans.

    As Caravaggio saw Narcissus, or as my
    parents saw me minor in poetry.

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