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Into Which Worlds Could Fall

January 29, 2015

by Jesse Patrick Ferguson

I got this want so hot, sister,
could melt the copper rivets of your jeans.
A want so wanton it could
prove the claims on the condom box.
This itchy, hanker-want contains all the ass
in the world as a pool, water.

This want so raw would rot
the teeth of Toronto street kids,
snap their last guitar string
and with it any last pretence
to bohemianism by choice.

Listen, I got a want so low-brow
could make a marketing exec
vomit in his mochaccino.
So vast, this want, it’s negotiating
its own Wal-Mart warehouse,
litigating already against
the forklift operators’ union.

Brother, this want wants what he’s got,
but not in the sense “the same as.”
It’s got dibs on what he doesn’t yet have:
I’ll take some of that. All of that.
This Cain-want confiscated
my brother’s wants, took a fat
magic marker to the grocery
and Christmas lists.

I taxied this hot-tar want
to the next town and scraped my boot
on a rock. Now at a good clip
on the road home, my sole
stuck fast to the gas pedal,
I finally grasp the verses:
He who puts his faith
in Big Oil shall not want.


Poetry
This poem “Into Which Worlds Could Fall” originally appeared in Spectres of Modernism. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 209 (Summer 2011): 66-67.

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