Sit down

Jane Arthur

1.

I’m entertaining the idea of never being silent again,

of walking into a room and shouting, You Fuckers Better Toe the Line

like a prophylactic.

I might slam objects out of hands and spit, You’ve Had Enough, Bozo,

and deep down they’ll know I’m right and they’ll weep

and they’ll never beat their wives, they’ll soften and be ashamed

they’ll never show their faces

except to top up supplies to clean the house –

their houses will be spotless, it’s the only way they’ll be able

to make amends, by staying home, invisible, and cleaning

cleaning cleaning cleaning cleaning cleaning.

I might spin so fast they won’t know whether I’m wearing

Lycra and cape or what I’m wearing but I’ll be quite super

and they’ll

they will be too afraid to move in case they’re the baddies I’m out to get.

2.

There was a TV show where the mysterious alien characters

who looked like humans could be told apart from the actual humans

because they had no belly buttons, only smooth, toned abdomens,

and of course the whole point of it

was that they were more human than most,

somehow, probably, I can’t recall the details

only their striking eyes and stomachs and their ability

for superhuman insights. I wonder what the show would make

of my chasmal belly button, my eight-hour-risen

bread-dough middle, if I’d be the least-human human being

in the otherwise entirely attractive small American town,

or what I’d be. I like to think I’d bring nuance to my character,

that I’d have the best lines, that I’d take no shit,

that if anyone was to die

it’d be bad men at the hands of me, even if I wasn’t exactly

what you could consider completely good.

Back to contents

Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/sit-down/