Strange Facts

by Bruce Cohen

There are certain portions of our lives that cannot be
Captured with a camera, are excluded from our diaries.
A jiffy is one one-hundredth of a second so by the time
You think jiffy it’s already no longer a jiffy. Such is life.

We have delusional eyes-all of us are convinced we possess
An element of beauty in the bathroom mirror. I read that
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off-
Ultimately the cause of its croaking is starvation. All my sons

Have moved out & I’m stuck with three-extra-functioning televisions.
Whoever actually invented electricity did so because he was terrified
Of being alone. My social calendar consists now primarily of crank-calls,
Robo-solicitations & my own vapid threats scrawled in primitive lipstick

Capital letters on bathroom mirrors. The average breast size of teen-age
Girls has increased by 13% over the last decade due to environmental
Contamination & the influx of genetically modified hormones injected
Into our grocery chickens. Sometimes the best think-tank doubles

As a drunk-tank. For the first time in a quarter century I find myself
Staggering down each morning for my high-octane caffeine fix &
Discover the previous night’s leftovers are still left over, circumstantial
Evidence my sons are living elsewhere with their heads unattached.

Bruce Cohen’s poems have appeared in literary periodicals such as AGNI, The Georgia Review, The Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and The Southern Review, and have been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. He has published two books: Disloyal Yo-Yo (Dream Horse Press), which was awarded the 2007 Orphic Poetry Prize, and Swerve (Black Lawrence Press); a third is forthcoming (Black Lawrence Press): Placebo Junkies Conspiring With The Half-Asleep.

*Photo courtesy of natebeaty.