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Paradyzed
Not a place, but a condition.
The sufferer will have only one
window in his skull, which looks out
at a brick wall. Daylight crawling down
to his story with all the urgency of sap.
Like the people he reads, he’ll think
more than he lives. A seed planted
with care, then paved over by a union
construction crew dragging its feet along
a prank in survey stakes.
Beneath the commerce of the real,
one has the luxury of confusing symbols.
Palm trees in Brooklyn. That little flag
on the end of a sandwich skewer. Another
people’s stubbornness.
If the afflicted is particularly unfortunate,
he’ll have traveled, learned from other cultures
that his has none. Few recover from that.
Miserably elsewhere at all times. So he’ll begin
to search for a village where everyone shares
or a tight assembly of character traits
that matches the laguna in his head.
Where curative waters mingle with palm shade
at eighty-six degrees year-round,
and the trees still bear fruit on their own.
Return to Volume 3.1
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