Dust / Change

This is my flag. I wear it to class;
I swear it's gonna get me laid.

This is my shield. It's more than sun
glinting off water. It's the ocean.

Oh--them? She asked, like a man
exacting revenge upon a half-pipe
with a hammer.

"Ain't got no glue guns around here,
son," he said, smoking a cigarette and
motioning toward the snow planks on top
his auto, which hadn't been driven in a while.

Sometimes I'm a cat underneath the rug. I
make tunnels out of folds. A whole unruly apartment
is my whole world. Clean it and I become extinct...

said the mouse to his flock. "Father Mouse," one
began, "Please forgive me. It's been... seven minutes
since my last confession. I have to admit... I like
smoking plants, sir. Father, sir, that is, sorry. Harrumph.
Um, I like to get high."

And meanwhile, the mouse tries to get clean
all the rats in the alleyway oblibiously smoke tar
strangle the ashes and let loose on some
hobnob bicyclists.

"Where' your vitamins now, fags!" the looters
chirp, not unlikely mad crickets, at the ponies
as they snork and bury their hooves in the dust.

But it's not because they're lazy or ashamed. Sometimes
dust behooves us, no? We look at it and realize
that we don't realize what's going on. Just now,
dust collecting. Perhaps it's more certain even than
change. The austere wooden paneling remains the same,
but its appearance grows more weary every day.