It begins with me choking
on the bones of my last breath,
the other shoe, the old one two,
relics of rhetoric rising from the grave
as if a given, as I cough
until I see stars and sparkles,
the wheel of fortune somehow
always set to resurrect,
the compass of a past iteration,
the punchline another round of jokes.
It ends in the guts of thrift
and privation, the poverty of things and
soul that sets in the mettle
of a certain type, turning over stones
searching for the words to make
it work, all to take a spill
the slapstick to ring your crown,
cartoons all have their form—
to try and tray so hard
hilarious constellations appear so fast
it hurts so bad to see stars.