"Directing the traffic of crows and their shadows." -Charles Simic, from The Voice at 3:00 A.M.

Ideals

I was poisoned. I couldn’t believe it when it happened, after the lengths I took to avoid something like that. It was either the glass of water, or the blueberry pancakes, or the bacon, either strip, or, it could have been all of those. An hour after breakfast I felt the poison metabolize in my guts and work it’s way through my system. By noon, I had started sweating and pacing, thinking about nothing but poisonous snakes and spiders, and wondering which poison was used on me. I wondered if it attacked my central nervous system. I wondered which motor function would go first. I wondered if it had already begun, and I just didn’t notice yet. I went to the bookstore and bought some volumes of medical journals, a book on poisons used by indigenous tribes in South America, and a funny book of poison-related jokes that caught my eye while walking to the register. When I got home, I told my wife one of the jokes. Oh, and, by the way, I’ve been poisoned, and I’m not sure when I’ll die I said. Really, and after the lengths you take to avoid things like that my wife said. It’s been years since then. I got the promotion, despite my ailment, with my charming knowledge of poison-related jokes. I traveled to South America and lived with a tribe for a month. There, they have this saying that has something to do with poison and souls. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I feel privileged to be part of something like that. I can’t wait till the day I forget how to blink.