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viral
December 15, 2005    File under: Tapeworm

comment moves within us like a virus, the unredeemable
microscopic node of otherness, of foreign-ness replicating
until part of us isn't part of us anymore: the leucocytes rush

around it like playground kids ready to pummel the snitch
but it just won't give, repels all blows, escapes to hide
in the holly hedge and divide: imagine the child in the cradle

of sticks and stickers telling his tale, the words drifting cold,
substantial from his mouth, hanging there in December air,
and then another mouth forming around that story,

an explication: and then another and another and the process
continues until the school is filled with cloud-breathing kids,
the air's a mist of snitching, the hallways unnavigable

and in need of some serious clearance: the janitor emerges
from his closet with a giant fan, sets up by the chain-locked
fire doors and lets his industrial current blow, then the mist

and the mystifying kids vomit from the ends, wander in the
road-side weeds just looking for another school: they collect
by the river, break in small groups and retreat to unleash

computer hacks and comment spam and soon they are here
with remedies for clarity and ease and reticular disfunction
though we know it's just a ruse: you see them curled there still

like smoke in a lung, a hallway, an ear canal, though what they're
saying you can't hear clearly, like static in an ear canal, like
the virus on your hard-drive, the tapeworm glowing on the film:

Posted by Jake Adam York at December 15, 2005 9:19 AM