mr speaker

let's bend the bracket

and roll it towards

some misplaced comma,

an escape to make in these

harsh sentences,

we can give ourselves

space to breathe

while we let out the seams

growing fat and old

and joyous in our

predetermined defeat

let's bend the bracket,

those quaint little cubes

at the chopping block

of time where hours

are portioned out

to a 40-hour/week

combo-meal served fast

while driving the distance

between here-nor-there

only to stall out midway

in midday traffic jams

it's true what we heard,

I have charted the holes

in the landscape

tailor-cut for each shape,

yes a hole for everyone:

they get squeezed into ink,

the existence of the capital I

the finality of the period

let's bend the bracket

into a parentheses--

we can live as afterthoughts

in the grand scheme of things,

commentary to history

and footnotes to progress

where one might stand

a hand on his head

and beg mr speaker

consider us,

his two counter-points

let's bend the bracket

and define the space

where we smoke

the obligatory cigarette

and say it's not you

it's not about me

it's about Them

it's them that's the problem

it's true what we were told,

people speak there,

digging eloquent graves

to lay their desires in

packed and parceled

and distilled as they were;

they would make mummies

of us if we let them

let's bend the bracket,

we can trash the yard

and claim it as a step

towards revitalizing

the neighborhood;

we can whitewash stop-signs

to protest the laws

made against motion;

we can be the blight

to the whole block

so come

I have a curb to sit on
and a boombox that plays
just one beat
too loud
for all eternity