Ellen DeGeneres Tweets ‘Sobbing’

At an outdoor table set for a child’s tea party, a little blonde girl is using a saw to slice a ham inscribed with the words “Corpus Christi,” which is Latin for body of Christ. Rats have collected around her feet in hopes of catching falling scraps. I scream something—in terror, I suppose. Nothing is as I remember. Past, present, and future exist all at once. I wonder how someone could let that happen. The girl stops what she’s doing and suddenly turns and runs, as if pursued by a cop who travels through time. Ellen DeGeneres tweets “Sobbing.”

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A Bible thumper stands on the corner shouting, “I shall destroy all the civilized planets! You shall die by your own evil creation!” A policewoman tells him to move along. “Is it safe to go to Paris?” he asks. “What was the light like?” “Like Friday afternoon in the Universe,” she says. He loses a shoe while fleeing. Parents lift their children up, say, “Look! Remember!” The policewoman puts her hat on top of the shoe because it starts to rain.

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The sun beats down on South Bend, Indiana, with mounting fury. A piercing shriek migrates from the Old Testament to the Gospels. I need my luggage to get lost, but what happens? The police extract DNA from a shoe! My goal, obviously, is to sing again, dance again, draw new cartoons. Amazon has hand-picked a few items just for me, among them a streaming video. Dying flowers appear in it less than half way through.

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Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely. Other work of his can be found here.