Have a nice day I say to the snowflake of a woman, handing me
        my boarding pass at the airport gate,

when what I should wish her is a nice life, ‘cause chances are
        we’ll never see each other again.

But I don’t. I act like this whole being alive business is normal,
        these knuckles and feelings: normal.

Then she asks anything else? And yes, there’s so much,
        I mean, have you ever imagined

the ocean is alive, and needs to tell us something important,
        and the only way it can talk

is by making waves crash, and we just lounge there, drenched
        in coca butter, on towels

with crappy novels and volleyballs, sipping spritzers, as the ocean
        uses all its strength to repeat

the same warning over and over? Yesterday I was in a department
        store feeling depressed, when

an employee bounced over and bubbled may I help you, sir?
        Yes, yes. I’m looking for a toothbrush.

A toothbrush with bristles long enough to spiral up my windpipe
        and scrub away the dirty thoughts.

A toothbrush that can help me look police officers in the eyes.
        Do you have any tooth brushes

like that, my friend? I want to build a giant mall around
        the perimeter of West Berlin,

and call it the Berlin Mall, and the only way to get from one side
        to the other is by purchasing something.

I want pictures of me blown up and hung every fifty yards
        along the entire Great Wall of China.

I want a nun to wrap her arms around me, let her tongue unfurl
        down my throat like a roll of stamps.

I want school kids in Paraguay to be force to memorize
        my most awkward silences.

I want to be born again. Not metaphorically. But shrunk down
        and stuffed into my mother’s womb.

And no blood food this time. I want sodas and crackers
        and a little projector so I can watch

movies on the walls of her uterus. I want a time machine
        so I can return to the night

I was conceived. When my father climaxes, I’ll jump out
        hollering, here I am! It’s a boy!