New poem "Humility"

Mark Chartier © 2005

Humility

I saw you today:
You smacked my ass,
Because I was pestering you about spraying me with
Hairspray after I got out of the shower.
When I came into the diner, you said I was sick
Because I hadn’t washed it off,
And you wouldn’t kiss me until I did.

Maria sat me in number 4,
And brought me a bowl of clam chowder.
Moses and his mom were sitting across from me.
They came here every Sunday after church.
For the Root Beer floats,
And the fuzz on the TV screen
That phased in and out during the game.
Moses is 15 and has Tourette’s, but he doesn’t swear by it.
He rattles his neck and bops his head until it’s right.
He wheezes and clatters his teeth on his tongue,
Like they’re trying to saw it off.
I tried not to stare at him,
Looking up at the ceiling like he’s waiting for God
To rain down and save him, or
Maybe he just didn’t take his medicine today.
His mother’s eyes are sticky.
She works graveyards
And doesn’t see the light,
So she wears sunglasses to protect her
From the looks of those who know she
Took the rod to him last week when he peed in the garden.

A girl behind Moses is humming He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,
She bends down to pick up his fork.
He takes the fork, and cups her hand as he smiles.
She was there today when the kids at Sunday School asked him
If he was alright. He told them Yes, but they don’t hear him, hear him.
I was wondering if he has it even in his dreams,
When he turned to me with the wallows of his eyes
Anchoring into my skin
The kind of look you pay
Mind-hookers $120 an hour to solve on
Their couch.
Looking like he could see the cartilage
Cleaving my bones

Later, I walked up to Professor Eplingy reading
About Oedipus’s complacency and rashness.
I asked him why God gave us disease.
He put his hand over Jocasta
And said God made us the best he could,
With or without disease…
We can conquer it or be conquered by it,
But we play, nonetheless.

I went outside.
It was raining,
The hairspray was running off.
I wanted to kneel
When I felt it crushing my cranium,
Zipping through my veins,
Like when you kiss me,Humbling me like a whiff of humanity’s rotted seed being passed on