Spider on My Tongue by T.M. Wright Page A

your lard and your whole wheat.
    My smile is as broad as Montana tonight.
    Did I tell you that my little house in the dim woods is located in Montana?
    I didn't?
    It isn't.
    It's in some other state.
    I think Vermont.
    I think New Hampshire.
    I think New York.
    But shit, nothing matters less than the state I'm in. Oh, I'm still laughing.
    I hope you're laughing with me.
    I could not find the doorknob. I was in the room, in the dark in the room, and I could not find the doorknob. I looked for a light in the room, a light to turn on, and there wasn't one, and I could not find the doorknob. I found the door easily, but I could not find the knob on the door so I couldn't get out of the dark room. I reached for the place where the doorknob had to be, where it always had been, but no matter where I reached, I couldn't find it, and I could not get out of the room, though I searched for hours and hours, and then, eventually, for days, and, after a time, for weeks, but I couldn't find the knob, and I couldn't find a light in
the dark room. And I kept searching because what else was I going to do except search, what else was there to do but search for the knob, feel around the edges of the door in the dark for the knob, but I could not find it, and so I knew, at last, after a very, very long time, after months, I believe, after what could have passed for months in someone's universe, that I was dead.
    And then I found the knob, and I got out of that room.

People in coats and hats, people carrying umbrellas, carrying
briefcases, carrying babies on their backs, and people lugging
groceries home; people arm-in-arm; people in polo shirts, in hand
me-down dresses, in gray suits, people laughing, sweating, people
carrying tennis rackets, showing off new shoes, coaxing youngsters
to come along, people looking in shop windows.
    Old people who have trouble walking, old people jogging, old
couples smiling affectionately at one another, as lovers do.
Teenage couples with their hands on each others' rear ends; boys
on street corners learning about lust.
    It was daytime.
    And Manhattan's streets were crowded, as they always are, then.
    — A Manhattan Ghost Story

TEN
     
    They—these departed--tell me there is nothing quite as meaningless as death.
    "Nothing," they say, "is quite as fucking meaningless and as fucking misunderstood as death."
    "It's simply a passing away," they say.
    "Just a passing away," they say.
    "It amounts, after all, to no more than passing through a doorway that isn't a doorway into a room that isn't a room in a house that's an entire goddamned universe," they say, without apparent irony.
    But then they laugh. After that line. The "goddamned universe" line.
    "It's like giving up crayons for one's fingertips," they say. And they laugh at that, too, as I do.
    Such humor.
    "Is there pain in dying?" I ask.
    "Oh yes, in dying," they say, "but not in death. It takes your breath away, and then you hear, and then you see."
    Such humor.
    "And what about hunger?" I say.
    "Good God," they say, "we need it, hunger, every last one and all of us, else we wouldn't be!” which makes them laugh as well.
    And I say, "But what of me?" and they fall silent.
    ~ * ~
8
     
    It is this about hunger: it's neither underrated nor overrated. It is simply what it is—need, and they (these departed) are correct, of course; we wouldn't be without it.
    And so they, these departed, come and go like hunger pangs, and I am left only with shadows I can count on one hand, on two fingers, and need, which is hunger, too, and hunger, which is hunger.
    ~ * ~
9:02
     
    You see, understand this, I came upon them on a blue note on a bald table making hay in the sunrise, and so I shot them, and so.
    And:
    “Full House," she declared. “What do I need with a full house?" and spread her legs.
    And:
    These are my puppies. Take one. Take one. Give it your home. Take one. Take this puppy. Take this puppy. These are my puppies. Take one. Give it your home.
    ~ * ~
    My