Ducky

Sarah Daly

You collect dysfunction like

baseball cards:

the amoeba-like shoots of hypochondria,

the magenta-stars of agoraphobia,

the up-growths of anxiety,

and the demented daffodil’s face that is depression.

 

Plain obnoxiousness will stalk you

like a rabid squirrel,

and obesity will suffocate you

until you have nothing left to give;

suicidality will darken your door,

and even dare to enter,

once.

 

Forget it. The law has a way of

dropping those cards, scattering them,

destroying them, and minimizing them until

they are nothing but mush.