4982. HORATIO RICHMOND ANTI-MATTER

HORATIO RICHMOND 

ANTI-MATTER

Oh boyos and hobos and girlos and me! The raft is

rocking; gently, sweetly, and profuse, filled with dreams 

and old letters from home. Let me go, let me : there's a

shack by the railroad, a little hermit's place, and one old 

guy inside named Fritz. We throw him money and he shoots

us with salt. His first child was a pellet gun, and it's 1954.

-

I want to dream again  -  the letter rack, the telephone bench,

the rocking chair and the love seat too. I was only a little boy,

but had to learn these names. My house was made up of things;

my mother's new phone cord was eight feet long  -  so she

wouldn't be tied to the phone when she was tied to the phone.

-

What was the matter with that? I crumbled a week later, in front 

of a train that took me down. 'Thank God it was only a locomotive,'

my Mother used to say. I never quite got that, but it meant she 
was happy that it wasn't a long train  -  it was only an engine 
and a spare and a coal car, going somewhere. 
Seemed fucking pretty long to me.

-

'Don't despair,' they used to say, 'Don't despair, Aunt Bluebell's

here.' I spent my live in a cauldron, turning and turning and 

turning to be shined like a small-kid's marble. I want

to dream again. I want to dream again.