documentaries offered a clearer view of
snuff film rights groups
men with uniforms and guns ordering
a new shape of piano
back then, sheet music wasn’t
decried as being
a razorblade

if you wanted to see
a small-time hustler dangled out of a window
a Moroccan Woman attached to
a billboard by suction cups
or the men and women who called IBM home
stapled to an elephant
you’d just call
the concierge and give him
Sinatra’s room number

they made thin cardboard both
blast and bullet-resistant
they had to
no one worried about
poles with overhead cables or power outlets
the cultural implications of sexy photographs
of rows of little reindeer pelts on ice

you didn’t have to keep telling yourself that
rabies is not a concern
there were signs everywhere
you kept the scenarios of rapid dermal absorption
by a man in a park who starts to crack like Bubbles
to yourself

you’d hand your boat to someone on the shore
come back a few hours later and it’d
have broken windows, exposed wires and improper ventilation
and you’d laugh it off
because it wasn’t really your boat

you’d look into your palm and there’d be
everything you needed to demolish a wall

our motto was “when it comes from a gun,
you gotta grab it with both hands and hold on tight!”

and I can’t say that we didn’t
lose a heckuva lotta of hands
and fingers that way

but in the world we would come to know
the habits of always being deliberate, careful
only served as a useful prophylactic against
a vague immortality
something to hold onto
anyway