Nixon’s Lament (2014)
Raul A. Asoy
My fingers have replaced my mouth
Talking in steady taps and tags; my voice
Wrapping itself around words is obsolete.
It drains less to graze my thumb
Through neon keys than to clear my throat and
Worry about tone, and agonize over inflection lest
You see my likeness behind the windblown lace of forewords,
And sort the leanings embedded in my diction into an ordered
Taxonomy. Perhaps, you could stumble upon the morse code
Through fibers and lines, luminous and naked like jellyfish in July.
My tongue conveyed its own prejudices, twisting like
It would break from the weight the sound of my voice carried.
Proud, even though it could be chased out of the room by a sad
Look or an apology . . . no August will come to whisk me out
Of my lawn again.
My fingers will keep the dark spaces dark, and
Musings will stop short of being rants, dishonestly treasuring
Sentiments that are defiantly virtuous, yet acceptably neutral,
Historians be damned.
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