Clearing the History
Then it was finished.
Whimper.
Bang.
I clicked. I pictured
beneath me my afternoon’s study—well-hung
deliverymen tendering their mouths
to the crotches of housewives, webcam
punk girls—swirling
& tumbling in the hard drive’s
drain hole. Below
our corn fields real
amateurs, I imagined, merged
with our neighbors’ filth, flowing, the whole
sweet concoction, out
toward some distant ocean. We know,
keystroke, every
twelve-girl gang bang is cached
to a government server somewhere
in the desert in a basement
even the fault lines, its designers
say, will not disturb. I wanted,
my father in the doorway. The way
he did not hit me. Did not
for a single instant acknowledge
the blonde, unbelievably
limber babysitter fist-
fucking on his office computer, or later, lowering
his eyes in shame, my first girlfriend
as she vaulted the couch. I wanted, yes,
slow dying together
in Ohio. Also
its winters. Its working class clocking in
to swing shifts at Marion Steel. Stadiums
of howling men letting out
their rage on some small tribe
of boys dressed in the brightest of armor. It is true
