The Assassination of Helen’s 29th Year by the Coward Birthday Time
Her 29th year lived in a 2 bedroom apartment on Pine St
next to a medium-height plastic fence behind which
paced a white haired neighbor, his head bobbing curiously
like the aperture of an un-convicted serial-shed-killer, back and
forth across the horizon of false lumber
as if dancing to granulated sounds put forth by
the li-cit-ri-cus chit-chatting of clock-ticked squirrels and
young stovepipe-shaped sidekicks dressed in stylish hats
Her 29th year was in possession of the most beautiful features
that included a magnanimous rack, which she was cautious about
exposing lest the entire world be melted completely into some sort
of ridiculous safe-cracking-type trance
When she walked into a room:
clocks moaned
partially read magazines exploded
unhealed bullet holes healed
busted televisions blinked rapidly
‘Martha’s good eatin’’ came out to dance
Her 29th year regretted neither its overall internal greatness
nor its hot-assed exterior casings
and on April 4th in the year 2008
It was 30 years old
(written for Helen, when we were still together, one year before the aftermath began)
Multiverse Johnson 