Paper creased down
so only her face, her story,
her left loves
were the soybean
sulfur characters
embalmed in paraffin
to be seen and copied
by a blinding light and
easily jammed paper
As Figurative Bob
(the imaginary character with wiry comb-over hair and stretched, tucked in, missed-a-button-down over his pregnant paunch--the sad reminder that these are not his glory days--produced to represent stereotypical cliched corporate structure as comfort in times of non-concrete circumstances)
references
the other Bob[Marley] with a
silky chuckle and reggae tune[again and currently unaware of the irony behind the "jammin'"]
I shut up his sing-song voice with a blink and a shake of my head
and considered the life
on the other side
of the folded
ignored by us
but copied and mourned by other
lost loves and words we would never know or care to
not out of lack of empathy, but by the inability
to soak up every loss and make it our own
too many characters clutter plot lines
I considered my world
words, all words
and names (God, to be named and owned)
the beginning was the Word
we end in words
stories told
printed voices
the ink of our obituaries
fade, haunt the archives
as swimming souls dressed as microfiche
just words and the sentences
for we are not built to last Here
no guaranteed extended warranty
on our parts, hearts, mentalities
only in
stories drenched in hyperbolic
kind falsehood truths
do we remain
so pass us down honestly
our words
our worlds
make us legends
