Why I am Glad

I am a poet
not a football player.

Commentators who talk about football
almost always sound

stupid. And nobody covers poetry
on television anyway.

They test football players
for marijuana use.

They don’t know enough
poets to test us

for much of anything and
since they don’t pay us anyway

there’s no point to our
extraordinary rendition

unless we pose a severe
threat to the state. Which

is what we wish we
really could do.

We have nothing to lose.
. . . freedom’s just another word . . .

Poetry is much less
hard on the human body

than football, although it does
untold damage to the human brain.

Keeps it alive, & so,
ready to see,

although no more than any
other consciousness

able to survive, the
upcoming indiscriminate

holocaust. In unrequited
resistance, we will speak

about how it happens for as long as
we can & until it is done.