The world is a virtuoso of yuck.
I try to scrape the current scene
off my arms and the bottom of my shoe.
It won’t budge, but only lingers,
even spreads over my exposed legs.
The great conception that was the world—
what happened to it?
Devolved, it has melted, is melting still,
becoming a raw substance
fundamental as water, a dirty waterway
rivuletting along like a deteriorated stream.
I like what’s new, but this regression
reeks of the old I thought was done for:
rejected and outgrown.
I cloister myself, refusing the streets,
the plazas that join mediocracy
with crime, decay, the disreputable.
I cower in my basement,
thinking the despicable too blind to spot me.
Yet there it stands, the trashiness of today,
peeking into the crawl space,
its lips dripping saliva
as it prepares to attack me
like a virus or a bacterium.
It wonders if I’m vulnerable enough
for it to inflict me
with its weapons of malaise.
I wonder if its strike is fatal.
