Cutting Board

it is a sin to cut onions around happy people
so i will read to you from those books on the shelf
and teach you how to remain,
how you are alive and you skin is flat
and colored like cashews

you abolished knives now
all the vegetables must be eaten wholly now
there is no way to dig around for your sinew
we are hovering in time reading books
but not learning
digging in our ears
but not moving too much

if we were carpenters think of all the hammers!
on the roof we would have precise balance
and a certain way to handle each tool
you would think nails are not important
and i would discover a way to hammer quietly

but we are on a couch
everything we have ever learned has stopped moving
in a way that doesn't resemble stasis
we were once on a porch, doing well
but moved inside, like people do in movies
we are almost like those people, but we have no money
and our skin cells are falling off

the way our hands are covered in earwax
might be mentioned in another section of time
or maybe it will be something else mentioned

the way the room smells rotting.