Back in the day, the top page
of the
little spiral notebook I keep
next to the microwave/toaster
oven stack
on the composite-wood
desk-cum-kitchen
utility table would come alive
when I plucked the plastic
ballpoint next to it,
placed its ink-wet roller on
the aforementioned
page and wrote a cruder
expression for
toilet
paper upon
it, ordinarily hesitating
a heartbeat while my rational
prowess wrestled
unsuccessfully with reflexive
prudence which
invariably begged me to use
the euphemistic
form or face possible unnamed
retribution from
the humorless, nagging,
persnickety, conditioned reflex
we know as that tiny haloed
angel perched on our right
shoulder, finger raised in
celestial admonishment.
Well, that priority is
history, and we’ve come to regard
shit paper [yes, I hesitated]
as a staple from days gone by,
with the promise, if luck be a
lady, to strut back one day
in triumph with more prestige
than it has ever known.
Meanwhile water has oozed to
the top, rising
from second place to leave the
pack—bread, onions,
mustard, bacon, hot dogs, et.
al.--drifting along
with lesser urgencies among
things for which
I am willing to venture into
dire risk, homemade-masked
and armed
with 70% [the new standard]
isopropyl-soaked Bounty towel
in
pocketed Rubbermaid compact plastic-lidded holster,
from
which my draw is sufficiently fast to execute
microscopic killers on
surfaces I touch or might touch
or might wish to touch or that
touch me. Why water,
I hear you thinking to ask?
Think
funny
tasting anything
with tap water
were your palate as
mysteriously persnickety as mine.
m.d.
paust
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