Poems from North of the Cities by Louis Jenkins
|
|
| I believe in the big brown pills, they lower cholesterol and improve digestion. They help prevent cancer and build brain cells. Plus they just make you feel better overall. I believe in coffee and beet greens and fish oil, of course, and red wine, in moderation, and cinnamon. Green tea is good and black tea, ginseng. I eat my broccoli. Nuts are very good and dark chocolate, has to be dark, not milk chocolate. Tomatoes. But I think the big brown pills really help. I used to believe in the little yellow pills but now I believe in the big brown pills. I believe that they are much more effective. I still take the little yellow ones, but I really believe in the big brown ones. |
| In Sitka, because they are fond of them, people have named the seals. Every seal is named Earl because they are killed one after another by the orca, the killer whale; seal bodies tossed left and right into the air. “At least he didn’t get Earl,” someone says. And sure enough, after a time, that same friendly, bewhiskered, face bobs to the surface. It’s Earl again. Well, how else are you to live except by denial, by some palatable fiction, some little song to sing while the inevitable, the black and white blindsiding fact, comes hurtling toward you out of the deep? |