Drew Pisarra - One Poem

The Stationmaster’s Wife

Let’s talk about the anorexics

and their drive to get rail-thin

or the self-asphyxiating masturbators

with their plastic bags and leather belts.

Let’s talk about addicts and alcoholics,

and try not to condescend or condemn.

Instead, let’s be empathetic and lurch along

with them to the rhythm of yeah-yeah-yeah.

Let’s try to understand the chronic liars,

the unfortunates and the disinherited,

the kleptomaniacs and the insomniacs,

the chain smokers and the nail biters, too.

As for me, I've watched as faceless
horseshoe crabs washed up on shore

and seen a paraplegic hummingbird flap

its frantic wings over the hydrangea.

I understand inertia is that state

of being which requires all you’ve got

just to stay right where you are.

I’m here, and yes, you’re there.
There’s nothing between us.

At least, nothing worth mentioning.

Drew Pisarra has been known to stage Gertrude Stein plays, turn Fassbinder movies into poems, and blog weekly about Korean cinema. He has toured his monologues to ssuch plcess as Highways (LA), Bumbershoot (Seattle), and PICA (Portland) and most recently grew a mustache to play Nietzsche in an opera.