or preening in a rummage sale rayon forties dress
printed in phony pink Japanese symbols. Sometimes
it's snatching plastic daffodils from someone's
yard, convinced they're real or stealing
a gold lame sandal at a bar, leaving its owner
to hobble home. How about painting your parents'
basement in broad red, white and blue stripes,
then bored, quitting halfway though? It's
guzzling a fifth of whiskey on a dare and sending
a two-pound Candygram to a pal, billing it to a name
in the phonebook and deciding to rearrange
all the furniture at two a.m. and eating not one but
two hash brownies just to see what happens. It could be
drunkenly running down a rainy street, falling
and crawling the rest of the way home. Or you
have sex with a guy you just met at Kentucky
Fried Chicken or you down more than one bottle of pink champagne
at midnight, then hitch to the 7 Eleven at noon to buy
a twelve-pack of beer. Maybe you're half-naked, getting
tattooed on your right breast at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,
the bikers cheering you on or how about taking home three puppies
from the pound when you only meant to get one. Perhaps
you've been up all night again, reading the entire book
because you can't wait or you're down at that dive
on the railroad tracks where you swallow quarter glasses
of Grain Belt, singing along to thirty-year-old jukebox songs
or maybe you just feel something rushing between your fingers,
gold rising into your mouth and head, knowing
you can do nothing to stop this glory, nothing.