Even while George Jones is singing She thinks I still care, I am creating another life. In the bathroom mirror, while I am flossing, I am hearing my son crying, he is only 6, my life spread out before me, useless as that was, it was a pearl before swine, I see that now, but then it seemed endless and forever. In the bathroom mirror I see my teeth are going all to pieces, or is that George Jones singing? Just because I went all to pieces....yes, it is George saying that. I am saying "god i have to floss every day, not once a week." Flossing was invented by a sadist. It is the most boring job in the world, bar none. To stand in one place and run a thread back and forth thru your teeth, one side at a time. thats lets see, 34 and 34 is 68 times. do we have 34 teeth? anyway, there i am flossing and a new life opens like yesterdays papers...or wait that is Mick Jagger speaking, i was standing there and a new life opened like a flower, like a book.
This life spread out, i was waking in the hospital.
"You have twins!" the six doctors say in unison. I open my arms, spread out two thousand miles i spread them, watching the tide roll away, no that is Otis Redding, watching the children rolled away to Intensive Care. even so, i get a second chance i get a second chance. just like a Smokey Robinson hook. second second, i second that emotion.
My other lives, lived in quick glimpses, caught here and there, are all redemption themes. I am forgiven, I am allowed to try again and do it beautifully this time. Sweet baby, purple flower, smelling you for hours... oh that is Lucinda Williams. She wrote four great songs, and here is one of them on my Itunes. But she speaks well enough for me, sweet baby. Then I am finished with my teeth and the other life pops like a balloon in a cartoon, and I am here in the sad life. I have written a lot of songs about the sad life. This painful place where the kids are grown up and don't...and don't. don't say it. Even so, sweet baby, I got my teeth flossed. If it takes creeping away from the pain for a moment to fulfill my little chores, then that is what I will do. After all, I am not dying in a foreign country, like a Tom Bissell character. I am only dying in my own self.
Tom Bissell wrote a very good story in his book God Lives In Saint Petersburg. But the title story was not my cup of tea. Tea is one of the worst things for your teeth by the way. All that tannic acid is very bad for enamel. As if you care, right? As if you brushed, and then went alllllll to pieces....
This life spread out, i was waking in the hospital.
"You have twins!" the six doctors say in unison. I open my arms, spread out two thousand miles i spread them, watching the tide roll away, no that is Otis Redding, watching the children rolled away to Intensive Care. even so, i get a second chance i get a second chance. just like a Smokey Robinson hook. second second, i second that emotion.
My other lives, lived in quick glimpses, caught here and there, are all redemption themes. I am forgiven, I am allowed to try again and do it beautifully this time. Sweet baby, purple flower, smelling you for hours... oh that is Lucinda Williams. She wrote four great songs, and here is one of them on my Itunes. But she speaks well enough for me, sweet baby. Then I am finished with my teeth and the other life pops like a balloon in a cartoon, and I am here in the sad life. I have written a lot of songs about the sad life. This painful place where the kids are grown up and don't...and don't. don't say it. Even so, sweet baby, I got my teeth flossed. If it takes creeping away from the pain for a moment to fulfill my little chores, then that is what I will do. After all, I am not dying in a foreign country, like a Tom Bissell character. I am only dying in my own self.
Tom Bissell wrote a very good story in his book God Lives In Saint Petersburg. But the title story was not my cup of tea. Tea is one of the worst things for your teeth by the way. All that tannic acid is very bad for enamel. As if you care, right? As if you brushed, and then went alllllll to pieces....
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