MY EMOTIONS

MY EMOTIONS

My emotions are exiles in the wilderness

making cornerstones out of their bones

and my brain is a brittle loaf

of black, unleavened matter

I tried to break to feed the masses

but they have no appetite for night.

My body is a museum of foods

that people have forgotten how to eat

as the grave holds out its hand

for another charitable donation to the foodbank

that waits on manna from heaven

when it isn’t raining vipers.

I don’t know who the fuck I am.

I’m just this man who keeps happening

a blink out of time with his pulse

like a white guy in a black jazz band

who thinks he plays like everyone else.

PATRICK WHITE