Uncanny
splintered was Arturo Finito;
Arturo Finito made for unprocessible drift.
All jargons
bowled
to the strait’s boundless bunk.
Sound sad? What we mean is this: One Arturo
flakes
into a million Finitos. He’s a cake of
soap. He’s neato. Our dad. Not one of us
uniquely
feeling.
We’re crowded, pinched
at the presence of our Father Arturo.
Had
many sons, and many sons had
none. We had been had. I say we keep
being
born, and next bearing the born.
Opie Griffith “ain’t got no ma.” Nor we.
What
can we make of it? Present’s past due.
We have ourself. Turn out your coat, Arturo Finitio;
Artur,
Da-aa-aad, we gotta obtain
our
succor. A rest. Legions of us. We
suffer
the succotash, and eat it, in our
drovy
heaps, our dog cafeteria. The more likenesses,
the less we like. Today’s
baby
nine thousand ninety sixth’s birthday. We think
we’ll call him Rubeus. Rube-let.
When will my guest of honor his
high chair take?
Papa, enough. Let mange overwhelm cradles.
Already
there is too much owed between us.
No more innocents. We won’t permit it.
It is impossible to be finished, he says of the words,
that is, world, laughing, dead
of
the words. Finito. Zilch. Neytch. Gawne.
But not Arturo. Arturo stays to cook supper.
Finito
ad infinitum. From ultra, a voice:
Ultra
ultra. Beyond beyond is
what
I ask you, Pops: We want to arrive
in a present. We want to be it.
I
am on a doorstep, stopped. My brothers
cascade across my shoulders,
breaking
in waves, waves—I have no shoulders.
Who will carry these children?
Who
can manage to love them: inquiries,
snotty lips, language? Handrails?
Praise
finitude. Praise the
That’s enough.
Art—which of us would
have
been enough for you? Who serves? And where
do you get all these teenagers?
As
seen in these, multiplying, chain-gang,
infinitizing, redolent and
slappy-handed,
unrelinquishers, all
Arturo’s many sons. I am one of them,
and
so are you. Chin up. How like
must it feel to be vulpes vulpes, each
disyllable
swerving back on its word,
chasing its tail? A bird in the bush? It never
cancels.
Cold-skinned fox, hasty rust, blood sun,
I know you are, but what am I?
A
dervish-muff, melty throat. Continuing.
Dinner‘s been served. Seeking the
sought-after
cave,
Arturo commands his own final
mazurka, bouncing from catacombs.
It
won’t be last. So let’s just praise the
larder. Left right, left right. Sound off.
Dad?
Da. Don’t let’s wake.
