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Like Exiles in a Testicle Museum


by John Olson


The fat light of Easter throws pathos and faith into the tawdry, ugly world of senseless reproduction and amazes the eyes and urges the conference of birds. The air assumes the consolations of sawdust and lace. We make documentaries about infants, thunderstorms, and color. We dig deep holes in the earth searching for water and oil and metal. We throw balls. We roll balls. We bounce and kick and bat and juggle balls. Balls excite our interest because we live on a ball. We travel through space on a ball. A large ball of light shines on our lives and habitations. It is the charm and physiology of the ball that shapes our destinies and rejoices in our hearts and heads. But it is the scent of wood and sad delicacy of curtains that completes the conjugation of touch. You cannot touch this ball or any ball without the subtleties of incarnation and folds of dangling skin to translate sensation into ivory and ivy and string. It is why I always twinkle with compliments and keep my suitcase packed with thermometers. If you see me walking down the street looking tilted and angular it's because I have a railroad inside me screaming to get out and my grill is engorged with crepuscular dandruff. There are spirits who handle our true credentials and serve chamomile during intercourse. Perhaps you've already noticed these things and would prefer to tango with a heavier construction, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel maybe or a rocking chair made of popsicle sticks. That's ok. Do what you want. I have arranged for the rest of these words to continue making anarchic slaloms of seesaw beer. There is a maple tree that urges a quiet ascension to plausibility, a place where we can hang like exiles in a testicle museum and exempt ourselves from the hazards of logic and tinfoil.

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