This End of Night

I have no pet.
I only have my ignorance
so I chain it to a leash
and walk it proudly
through this end of night,
dressed up
in elaborate fashions
that never hide the fact
that it is really my ignorance.
People smile as it barks and bays
and yips and yaps
and tries to hump their shoes.
"Oh, so cute." "Look, look at it. It's
just like you," they say
as their dog squats, delicately shitting
polite memories on the sidewalk.

My ignorance sniffs itself
in such delight. It would be happy
to do it all night long, but I drag it on,
against its will. We have our loop to make
and a schedule to keep. We have to get back
to see the man made of light
and nod when our cue is flashed.

I have no pet.
I only have my ignorance.
I walk it proudly
through this end of night.



by jerry gordon

Channelling Anime

An enormous retarted boy sits on the floor of the Loop Line train. In purple sweat pants and a grimy black shirt and a mesh-back ball cap, he talks himself through a GameBoy world. Berating himself for bad choices, for losing the lives of lesser creatures that are under his character's care. Always the forces of evil and destruction, or perhaps simply the threat of a sudden impersonal death pushing into the tiny screen of life from beyond the invisible pink-plastic margins. The frame constraining reality. He mutters and his voice rises as though to cry. But we don't look at him, or even at each other on the train. He blocks the door that nobody wants out through. He moans and lets his GameBoy fall to his lap and then clunk to the floor. He's still plugged in through his ears. He begins to churn his face into an emotion, into a sorrow, and I wonder if it's his or if it's the little light's, the colorful smudge of his character there, now, on the floor. Dispossessed, is he sad or is he channelling anime?