Following a suggestion made by a poignant memoirist (who,
shall remain nameless, if we are lucky)
I came home from the library, the hairdresser’s,
and the grocery store, took up a rolling
pin and whacked it against the television.
A long crack striped the screen,
much more assertive than those uncertain
grey worms of static that
buzz, begging you to wait.
My brother left his baseball bat, again,
in the hall. I wielded it experimentally.
The practice swings were
successful. I lodged his
ball in the VCR, which feat is not mean.
Accompanying myself with a sharp
nasal hum, I reenacted
Norman Bates’ famed obsession,
then ululated like the savage,
square-jawed princess of the afternoon, taming
the mythic world in aluminum underpinnings.
I am glad no one was there to see.
As I cut swaths against
the coiled tubes, slicing
them as for a tea sandwich,
the colored wires stood out like nettles
in an unkept field. I vacuumed the shards of glass.
I hate that memoirist for her
good-looking success.
I suppose I saw
through her narcissan pool and found a murky
bottom, the fiendish
delight of beating rerun shows
to death, the joyous effect of violence
on television.
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