The Laws of Probability in Levittown
I've been smoking so much pot lately,
I figure out what my poems are going to do
before I write them, which means when I finally
sit down in front of the typewriter . . . well . . . you know . . .
I moved back in with my parents,
and I'm getting really good at watching TV.
Soon as I saw the housewife last night on Inevitable Justice,
I knew her husband was the killer and I told her so and I was right.
Remember whenever Jamie Lee Curtis would come on
TV and we'd yell, Hermaphrodite! all happy? I maintain
her father, Tony, is an American treasure, and have prepared a mental
list of examples why, so should we happen to meet again, my shit's backed up.
There were too many
therapists in the city—97% of all therapists
are certifiable ding-dongs by nature, which is fine
if you live in Platteville, Nebraska, where there's only
like three therapists in the whole town
(the odds are in your favor), but if ten thousand
therapists are lurching around the streets, chances are
one thousand will be 100% batshit nuts.
I had a choice between watching
Robert Frost talking about his back yard
on Large American Voices and Farrah Fawcett on True Hollywierd.
I chose Farrah, because I knew what was going to happen, and I was right.
Here's something I've been trying
to work in: 10 rations = 1 decoration.
What do you think? 10 monologues = 5 dialogues,
10 millipedes = 1 centipede, .000001 fish = 1 microfiche . . .
I've got a million of those.
I wrote them down, back when I was
writing things down. But I've been thinking I should
tip the Domino's kid more than a buck on 14. Should I?
by Jennifer L. Knox
from the Best American Poetry – 2006