[Poem-a-Week] The Tendency To Slip by Tony Godino
He said I’m gonna lick
He said I’m gonna lick the bag because I’m Pennsylvania trash. Then he rolled up a twenty and asked me where I been. I told him and he listened. I’ve changed, I said. l showed him all my essays on aging, with pages and pages of prosaic aching. Told him how I stayed up nights obsessing over style, conflict, pronouns, and pacing. Holding the broken oaths I’ve let go years ago. Trying on memory after memory. Spinning in front of the mirror wondering which form is less menacing. Maybe you can no longer quietly search for purpose, not these days, but this isn’t about the beast that works the page, he said taking the twenty from me, is it? He dipped his finger in what was left on the hotel desk, rubbed it into his gums, put some on his cigarette, and said, it’s about the beast that approaches. As more of it glows, he pointed up, you lose more control. Some days I awake, I said, a naked animal in an open cage. Today was one of those days. She made it to the eighth phase unscathed. Close but never close enough. I step closer to her ghost. At noon, I held her in my arms and worried for her midnight throat. I must choose a form, I told him. I can’t be both. I don’t know, but I think a werewolf is a metaphor for addiction. It’s waking up thinking god what have I done covered in blood hoping it’s yours. That, I know.
