there’s a kid on the jungle gym,
and he’s threatening to jump,
but it’s only 5 ft down,
so stop worrying, and maybe let him fly,
before he realizes gravity will always
bring him down
when i wear my rick and morty t-shirt,
my dental hygienist smiles and says she also watches the show,
but it sucks that that guy, you know that guy,
the one that does the main voices, or maybe just rick’s voice,
did all those skeevy things,
though i guess it’s not too surprising,
she says,
since when you think about it, there are a lot of historical figures
that are considered geniuses even to this day,
like,
she says,
apparently, isaac newton liked to masturbate during lectures behind the podium
while talking about gravity,
though she doesn’t know if it was specifically about gravity, or just any ole topic would do,
then she tells me that she’s finished cleaning my teeth,
and she reminds me that i need to floss more,
and i’m confused as to whether she was comparing that guy that does the voices for
rick and morty to newton,
or vice versa,
but either way,
i told her i’d try to remember to floss more,
as i rubbed the contour of my upper gums with
the tip of my tongue, and tasted lead leaking out and down my throat
the intimate inchoate form, formless, nascent names
ripping, violent jerks, through the hurricane’s grip,
while bouncing off a balancing pole across two buildings,
risk falling from the sky as the mother, a mother,
mother nature takes the city by the hand
and leads it to the precipice, right to the edge,
then push,
a quiet trip down the gravity well that ends in not such an unexpected way,
but we’ll say was, anyway,
a way
Fred Aiken Writing 