On the Notion of Purpose
The Man With the Wrong Dreams
A man who applies for something turns into a piece of paper.
There is never a place for him to describe
how heavy his head weighs in his hand.
No one is really this flat, or this thin.
There is no line to explain his body
-how it has to be filled and emptied endlessly
like a bathroom sink or drawer.
How when the body discovers it has no purpose
it begins to clog up, to stick.
Where is there space on a form to put down
what arms feel like, when they are tired
of looking for something to do? Where does a man check off
what it is like to be a man:
the gallons of fluid pumped into the sheets, the quarts
into women? How can he be considered
without this information?
Around him, Spring has arrived. It climbs into the branches
to swell the trees, turning them yellow and green in the air.
The simplest leaf pushes out of it's stem with such certainty
the man watching knows it does not have to apply to appear.
He is waiting to learn how he should flower.
As he waits, his hand falls asleep.
The blood has become hesitant, it cannot decide
why it should flow down any particular vein.
So the heart sags, bloated,
becomes a bag of leaking sludge through a useless machine.
Then nothing satisfies him: if there is a little work
there is not enough money. When there isn't,
any work will do. He turns
on what surrounds him: the rest of those waiting, each other.
Brushing his teeth on a Spring morning
the man discovers
he is the Man With The Wrong Dreams.
He has been waiting for the letter that says
Okay, now you are famous or Now you are rich
or even Now you have a job.
This morning, he knows this is wrong.
He goes back to bed. In the sunshine
lilacs are filling the air as the mailman passes.
-Tom Wayman
For and Against the Moon: Blues, Yells and Chuckles
