It Looks Like Everything Is All Right

M. Blake

 Just getting by, something took a piece of you

Everyday something nibbling at your soul

Or whatever that shrinking bit of you is

(Not the smiling face for the neighborhood)

That thing you’re desperate to hold onto

As you stroll through manicured and motor-buzzing

America, nodding at the righteous and the sweating

(Yet your back does not straighten proudly),

Yet again trying to place yourself

In another day, in another somewhat distant

Setting, where everything seems functionally perfect

(As noticeably attractive as a set of capped teeth),

You, son, are a healthy part of it

A well-tanned and toned specimen

Pleasant on the eyes, a walking advertisement

For good diet and sensible living.

Do they see the flashing tenseness in the jaw?

Hear the corrosiveness in the rant?

Feel the guts boiling?

No, that has nothing to do with eye-grabbing sneakers

Or the latest cut in shorts.

And the smile is always quick to the rescue

Covering for what the eyes betray

(A glimpse of the poison to put them back on their heels).

Where has his attachment to anything gone?

Can he become ardent about anything but a fantasy?

Smelling a stink in him, a chemical burning

(Yes, any treasure left licked by the flames)

Sensing a combustive end, a final implosion

With smoke fumes trailing in the air

A sudden “mysterious disappearance”

Recorded in the town organ of record.

A figure never without a smile and a wave

A good-natured ornament to the community

And surely missed, say those wistful expressions

Filling so many bright windows along the way

Expressing so many poignant moments

Releasing just so much cultivated feeling