there is a voice,
wild and distant
it belongs to neither a man
nor a woman
pelting words at me
that ring with the clarion
of a chinese gong.
its shouts convey
a smallness
as through the other end
of a telephone wire,
metallic,
taught with dismay

here is what it has been
telling me:

you grow backwards
my child
feet in the air,
head among the roots.
never has a baby
melted so fast.
fix this,
keep yourself from
digging up the
picket fences,
don't break the boards
off white summer houses.
you've got to rip through
this world like a storm
or a tornado
claim wall street,
own a company,
take a vow, for better
or for worse.
stop waxing this roman
addiction.