Your Way of Thinking

I was busy thinking cosmologically, and it made me appreciate life
in a very ambivalent sort of way, if you know what I mean.
I gave a stranger, full of life-change and anxiety,
the middle finger, and it was, instantaneously, a constellation,
one could spot it in the sky as a comet passed through it
with such approval and compensation. See, the 21st century, let's be honest,
left us flummoxed, it's true, but even more I was desperately in love
with an idea at the bottom of your back pocket, a nebulous,
fabulous little thing with an affinity for vintage comic books,
a falsetto voice, vice presidential impersonations. Because the earth,
the earth was pantomiming your relative kindness, it was worth
staging a parade for, but the streets were too festive with street lights,
fancy cars, and a child dressed like a grandfather clock hailing a cab.
Your way of thinking, a locomotive, it taught me something,
I felt young, full of life, thank you. You should know more about me
before shaking my hand. For instance, I mistook, just the other day,
a planet for a star, a parking meter for a 13th century Spanish king.
These misconceptions have their repercussions, and I apologize.
For your own good, ignore me, I'll keep busy making the most
out of this encounter. Excuse me, as someone is at the door.
They are asking for a frontispiece, and I know, thanks to you,
exactly what they mean.

Copyright © 2008 Christopher Kang All rights reserved
from Jubilat
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission