Chris Bullard
Wanna See Something Really Scary?
Monsters are not ugly,
but polished; not clad
in rags, but wearing
uniforms and crowns.
They do not hide
in shadows, but parade
before crowds, who honor
their cruelty as strength,
and are frightening,
not because they represent
the horrors we cram
into our subconscious,
but because they are
all that we aspire to be.
Karen
Front row, fourth grade,
ribs pressed against
the enveloping oak
writing arm of the desk
I try to memorize
Bolivia’s principle
exports: zinc and tin,
soybeans, natural gas,
solid items of rational
exchange between us
and a country I don’t
know anything about.
I’ve just about gotten
them all down when I
see everyone looking
not at teacher, but back
to the last row of seats,
a place for our “slow
learners,” a classroom
Siberia that produces
only spitballs. Norman
is ripping out clumps
of his hair which he’s
dropped to the floor
like test papers marked “F.”
Some kids are laughing.
Others have jumped up
from their seats to shout
“That’s so gross.” One
girl cries. I send my eyes
front so I don’t have to see
the strip-mined crater he’s
excavated on his crown.
I don’t want to take in
more images of the blood
settling on his ear rim
like snow on the Andes.
The principal escorts
Norman away, while I
blank out his deportation
by repeating “zinc, tin,
soybeans and natural gas”
a phrase I still employ
as a sort of avoidance
mantra when I encounter
street shouters erupting
about what’s been taken
from them or get asked
for coins from homeless
men wrapped in blankets
as dirty as plowed fields.
“Tin and zinc,” I mumble,
“soybeans and natural gas,”
a litany of useful things,
whose names represent
a reality that I’m sure of,
an economic system I
can understand. I just
tick off the resources
of Bolivia and I’m off
mentally to another place,
one that’s happy to supply
whatever we desire
without demanding
we give anything back.
