Karen, You Feel…

Karen, you feel the pain of this world but I am in pain because you won’t let me feel you

the Tutsis are killing the Hutus again and I can’t even kiss you because you’re so depressed I start licking your feet but there’s a PBS special on Bosnia & I can’t advance past your kneecaps I slip inside you but I get tossed out with an NPR update on genocide in Timor

Karen, you bring the suffering world into our bedroom: veal calves bleat in the closet endangered frogs hide in my sock drawer political refugees dangle from the ceiling

Karen, I want to take you to a romantic movie but you give all our money to a panhandler outside there’s just enough cash to rent a video but you won’t watch it because it’s starring Bruce Willis & he’s a Republican

Kaen, you refuse to eat anything but Ben & Jerry’s ice cream but when you find out their Rainforest Crunch is a fraud you stop eating entirely your breasts disappear & I argue “food can’t be bad, Emma Goldman was chubby”

Karen, you cut off your beautiful hair to avoid the shampoo that makes rabbits sneeze you demolish my car with a sledgehammer because because Toyota hacked up a porpoise you batter my watch into tiny pieces because Switzerland got rich off the savings of Holocaust Jews

Karen, you got the whole world weeping in our bedroom: Kurds on the bookshelf Gypsies under the rug Tibetans on my pillow & a rhinoceros in the hallway looking for his horn

Karen, you’re supposed to be my lover but your libido is smaller than Mother Theresa’s I know there are horrible atrocities but does our sex life have to be one of them?

what if the jungle refused to drink water to express solidarity with the desert? what if hawks refused to fly to support the wingless emu? what if flowers boycotted blooming to protest the conditions of the dirt clod?

what if the Sun itself shrouded its radiant light? the world would grow cold & feverish like I am now martyred by your bleeding heart for the world

Karen, love is the only victory I want to help you embrace the world but I want you to start with ME!