One thing’s for sure; in the future, the morgues
are going to be full of tattoos.
It’s going to be more colorful and easier to
manage:
“Hey Jeff, move Dolphin-Shoulder-Girl to tray
seven.”
“And get Mr. Flames-on-My-Neck out for the
doc.”
In Italy the tabloids are talking about
L’Ambulanza della Morte,
The Ambulance of Death;
a medic who was killing his passengers
to provide business for his brother’s funeral
parlor.
I think we can agree that the world is a Bible
with chapters shuffled all out of order.
I think we still can’t decide which we want
in the end: Justice or Mercy.
When my doctor asks what my symptoms are, I
tell her
self-pity and a desire to apologize.
She says my insurance policy covers self-pity,
but not, unfortunately, remorse.
Remember the movie in which Sidney Portier
plays a school teacher
who returns the love letter from one of his
students,
returns it with all the grammatical errors
corrected in red, heartbreaking ink?
I'm sometimes afraid that’s what I’ve done with
life.
Yet here’s what I have to say to all you travelers
-
Moses doesn’t make it to the Promised Land.
Cain and Abel don’t get reunited in the end.
Belief is not a requirement to go on living.
It’s possible I have this all out of order.
We’ll end up at a funeral parlor run by
somebody’s brother,
Our bodies covered with scars and invisible ink.
While I’m lying there naked, flat on my back,
I hope I remember all that I went through-
the storms and the lovers and mountains;
Complaining at the top of my lungs;
salting my grief with my mirth
