TYRANNY: A CONFESSION

The seed of it—when my father died, who spanked me

once and I never forgot it, but known for his kindness,

and perished young, his handsomeness upended like

a basket of peafowl eggs, and the seed of it—advent

 

of packaged bread, birth of Little Debbie snack cakes,

pipeline, zebra mussel, suspension bridge that spanned

the aching waters, ornery squeak of Martin Seuss’s swivel

rocker, first elementary school named after a colonial

 

madman, Hugh Hefner, his smoking jacket, blonde twins,

silicone, spectacle: first elephant on film, first filmed lunatic,

Frankenstein, my god, Frankenstein, the seed—retirement

of the spittoon, atom split like a meat pie shared by coal miners,

 

inventor of the first noose, 13 turns of the rope, my darling,

13 turns of the rope, game shows, terrible yearning for a gas

grill, must-have of children in grocery stores, folding money,

calfskin wallets, purse stitched from albino deer hide, my

 

obsession, as a child, with toy guns and holsters, fantasy

of myself as protected, unkind, that moment, age 10, I stopped

caring if my mother would return or if my father loved me

and feared not the apocalypse but being unbeautiful to strangers.