James Tate




Prose Poem

I am surrounded by the pieces of this huge
puzzle: here’s a piece I call my wife, and
here’s an odd one I call convictions, here’s
conventions, here’s collisions, conflagrations,
congratulations. Such a puzzle this is! I
like to grease up all the pieces and pile
them in the center of the basement after
everyone else is asleep. Then I leap head-
first like a diver into the wretched confusion.
I kick like hell and strangle a few pieces,
bite them, spitting and snarling like a mongoose.
When I wake up in the morning, it’s all fixed!
My wife says she would not be caught dead at
that savage resurrection. I say she would.