David Kirby: My Unhealthy Relationship with Life as We Know It

I’m fit to be tied, life. I’ve had it up to here.
If you consisted of nothing but clichés,
catchphrases, adages, old saws, mottos, slogans,

and apothegms, we wouldn’t have to think at all
other than trying to figure out how to pronounce
and when to use the word “apothegm.”

Back in the days of hot type,
when newspapers set stories with melted lead,
some typesetters kept certain headlines handy

if they knew they were going to use them
more than once: “Sinatra Slugs Photographers,”
“Police Arrest New Jersey Union Officials,”

“Liz Taylor Marries Again.” Easy as falling out
of bed, right? Problem is, words don’t always mean
what they say they do, as when my wife

wants me to do yardwork and calls me
her “big strong man” when what she
really means is “man.” And doesn’t

“I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy”
“I would wish it on my worst enemy”?
What’s the point of living through

some big-ass clusterfuck if you can’t visit it
on the middle-school bully, faithless lover,
sadistic supervisor who made your job

a living hell—wouldn’t you like to pull
the rug out from under those jaspers,
get them over a barrel, send them to hell

in a handbasket? Thing is, when you look
at a well-turned poem or story or play
or painting or opera or science experiment,

you think, “Wow, whoever came up
with this is really smart.” But they aren’t.
As the scientists say, if you know what

you’re doing, it’s not research.
The unknowable is in the art, not the artist.
It’s like the saxifrage, the little alpine plant

capable of splitting a mountain open
and bursting into flower. Okay, okay:
I’m throwing in the towel, life. Let’s kiss

and make up. Time wounds all heels!
I don’t know why I picked a bone with you
in the first place, but don’t rub it in.

You give me a break, I’ll cut you some slack,
and I’ll love you till the cows come home,
like nobody’s business, like a house

afire, like it’s going out of style. The thing
about the unknowable is not that you don’t know
what it is, it’s that it doesn’t know itself.

Copyright 2024 David Kirby

David Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English, Florida State University. His many books include Help Me, Information (LSU, 2021).