In this version of my life,
I'm a farmer on the island of Pathos.
I still have that same dopey,
open Irish face I've always had,
but I've shrunk several inches,
and become wiry, or scrawny,
depending on who you talk to.
As you work your way down
past the rubble of my ribs,
you'll discover my member
has grown to a considerable size,
something that makes the donkeys
curl back their lips like the talking horses
on television whenever they see me.
As for the farm, it is like Pathos itself,
rocky and dry and suitable for only
the most stubborn of animals. The sheep,
I might add, are hardly worth keeping.
Sometimes I cannot bear watching them
shuttling back and forth across the fields
as if they had no minds of their own.
Like small clouds of rubbish,
I find myself thinking.
(Con’t.)
As for my wife, she has become
as huge as Hector, and as implacable
as the black shiny cows she milks
like a herd, although there are only two of them.
And though she still has the thick-rooted hair
and high, Slavic cheeks of her youth,
she has taken to dressing entirely in black
and crossing herself endlessly,
in the manner of widows, even
when she is lying next to me.
And though you'll still find me here,
squinting bravely into the sun
as if it were my future,
I no longer do so
with the assurance of my youth,
but the grim resignation
of someone whose name
only the donkeys remember.