Who Will Clean This Up
God’s master plan, no free will among creatures, you see this is the exact same idea stated different ways. Different centers of gravity. The all, the I. And remember if god set this wheel in motion, to its determined end, that makes god as much a pawn as the rest of us.
There is a hole in my breastbone. It runs through the center of my chest cavity and opens in the middle of my thoracic vertebrae. My spinal cord, which my father always told me has the consistency of cooked asparagus, goes around. To both sides. Like a highway splitting around a pond. Who will clean all this concrete up. Who.
When I pass objects through the hole I feel the gravity of my body monitor their movement. Something about being so near my heart and lungs. I once rolled a ping pong ball through and lost contr—the ability to taste salt on meat. Chips were fine. Yet when the ping pong ball rolled down the small of my back it had changed colors.
Once while I was sleeping on a beach towel my brothers filled the hole with sand and sea glass and planted a small paper flag on top from Russia but the wind took the flag and they were able to screw on a knob from my dresser. I didn’t notice until we sat down for lunch. The chef came out of the back and offered us a better table, by the sea.
I have swum in the Mekong. I have swum in the Amazon. Both rivers had pink plastic bags stuck in the roots of the river trees. If you wait long enough by a bridge someone will hurl trash from it. It will land near you and you will swim out to get it but the hole in your chest will contract. Oh god, you will cry. You will not cry, Oh free will. And you will take the body of the bag around the waist and keep a finger in your chest to keep it from closing and you will kick as hard as possible back for shore.