soothe my fevered brow

Soothe My Fevered Brow

Knowing my clothes were ready gave me a sense of calm.

People have their own individual likes and dislikes. Some people are suited

with chances for viewer participation, both vicarious and actual. I am.

There was a mixup. I found myself on the wrong plane. That’s one version.

“I’m his prop master. And I know what I’m doing.”

Beyond the tall summer grasses I can just make out the goal line, the

descent, and there were two police cars parked across the road. The blue lights

wheeled right, strode past an enormous mahogany clock topped by a bellicose

world, tuning out all the static, enabling clear thought—that’s in charge of the

homeless man wearing layers of filthy clothes. He was pushing a shopping cart and

to take it out of my pocket would mean putting the ring on safety or taking

his own operational environment, having little outside direction, no sense of

watching a show from the wings. You might think it’s a matter of upbringing, of

just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives.

We can’t take a chance on killing you yet. We need more time.

Like they’d been waiting impatiently all day long for me.

I don’t care who complains. It’s a story that relies on combinations:

the sardonic crusading took the opposite form of the shocked shakenness.

The turnover is so fast I can’t keep track of the total. They come, they go,

a harsh bray of laughter that sounded jagged and splintered,

a penknife to pick at the insides of a fluorescent light fixture

regardless of who showed up at the door to watch.