Cali Kopczick
Doubt as I Knew It
Someone must have been notified about the red light bulb under the sewer grate,
the one I can see through the flood. The one I can feel
through the broken main. Something’s gone wrong,
a sheep bleats from a passing ark. I must have turned into
a one-way canal. And then a desk breaches
and the sheep jumps on, begins grazing on paper. The sheep turns into
a one-way initiative evaluation procedure.
Shucks, goes the stapler and Click goes the red light—
on just when I didn’t know it was off.
It washes out my red ink and here I am uncorrectable.
It’s uncanny, the ethical quandaries you get into
with the echoes of your own howling. It’s uncanny
how these other wolves can swim,
how the downstream grows fat with their furry haunches,
how the broken main glitters
with their pearlescent teeth,
red and smooth like a thousand pushpins.
3.1