19 April

GRAPHING OUR DYSFUNCTION
for a rocket scientist
1998


x > -4 (that's me).
y < 11 (that's you).
For instructional purposes
I'll keep it flat.

Take your graph paper, mark the axes
horizontal x and vertical y like the cross we bear.
Draw diagonal lines from the top edge
to 4 lines down from where you marked that x-axis.
All the way across. Good.

Turn your attention to the left side
of the paper and draw diagonals
in the opposite direction up and down
its length until you reach 11 past your y-axis.
There. Now that's done.

Note the crosshatching where the two graphs meet
in the upper left-hand corner.
That's where my terror of abandonment
and your ambivalence about commitment
overlap. It's the graph of our dysfunction.
It's what's wrong and why there's no use trying
to solve this problem

let alone all those trains
leaving Midwestern cities at various times and speeds,
loaded with dynamite, conductors
asleep at the switch.