five things i would like to tell the woman haunting the local snake store

one

the snake that killed you is no longer sold here, the

brand that made him pulled their contract and

the sales reps no longer feel pressure to honor

their sweetheart deal and push him into the hands of

customers who, like you, have never handled a snake

correctly. your untimely death

was unrelated

to the brand’s decision but I hope it can bring you peace

 

two

stop crying

the snakes don’t like loud noises

and neither do the cashiers who are

at best mildly

annoyed. you’re a ghost,

do something scary

 

three

if your purpose here is to exact

revenge upon the snakes, stop

poltergeisting in the snake food aisle and

spend more time poltergeisting in the

aisle where they sell the snakes, i know

you’re distraught but it’s been three years, and

you’re not an amateur

 

four

my apartment is not a part of the snake store, you

are welcome in the stairwell, but stay out of

my mirror.

stay out of my kitchen

 

five

the snake store offers good benefits so

turnover is low, but the sales rep who put

that snake in your arms and then just watched as

it coiled itself around you and emptied your lungs

while you thrashed on the floor

was fired; he faced no legal consequences but

he now works in door-to-door insurance sales and

lives with his mother-in-law who beats him with

a shovel when her arthritis upsets her

which is worse i think.

 

six

i don’t know if

any of that is true,

about the sales rep,

i don’t know who he was or

where he is now or if he’s one of

the half-dozen-odd members of the

rotating cast that greets me as i

walk through the snake store on my way home.

but i wanted to tell you

 

Asymptote

when you see the pile of glass and plastic shards on the road you

figure there must be a corollary to the Ship of Theseus which asks

how long an object can remain itself as its constituent parts

move further away from one another, is a puzzle in the box the same

object as the puzzle solved on the table, is it still the same puzzle if

you take it apart and if you give a piece to every stranger you encounter

at an airport or throw pieces out your window all over the road if

it’s scattered across the asphalt and the grass in the medians across

the world in people’s pockets does a puzzle still exist enveloping

everyone everywhere has every person and tree become a part of the

puzzle contained within its image complicit in its end goal

responsible for part of some collective effort toward its completion or does it

cease

 

you drive past the glass and the plastic shards you drive over deer

carcasses the road before them stained red with constituent parts carried

away from their bodies your eyes shift to lane change signals and

road signs you forget but you still track bits on your tires so there’s

a deer or a car shattered with some of its pieces ground into the tread

of the wheels around you there is a deer or a car shattered around you

you carry it forward allow it to expand allow its particles to infect

your surroundings you’re surrounded by the deer or the car not shattered

but expanded consuming enveloping the world through you it could be you

on the road your car your carcass carried across highways spread across

workplaces across lives enveloping consuming surrounding the world and still

there