Universal Applicant - Bill Callahan

Without work’s calving increments

Or love’s coltish punch

What would I be?

An animalless isthmus beyond the sea

Bees only swarm when they’re looking for a home

So I followed them

I found the bees nest in the buffalo’s chest

And I drank their honey that milk

I’ve seen this taste cased in almost every face

That’s working to see it in all

And this kidnaps me

Tied up in a boat and kicked off to sea

In tight baby binding technique

My arm chews through the swaddling slings

There’s a flare gun in my hand

I point it straight

I point it high

And to the universe it applies

It lit things up in lavender

Where I’d been was might go

I saw the calf I saw the bees I saw the buffalo and the colt

Well I’m sure they all laughed at me at me solo in my boat

The flare burned and fell

The boat burned as well

And the punk and the lunk and the drunk and the skunk and the hunk and the monk

in me all sunk