Begin with knowing the comma
is a word and the word
is always fuckin’. Forget the gerund,
then torque the lazy u
into an a, and let the vowel
kneel into the roof of your mouth
like a penitent against a church pew. Stretch
the c into the k, graceful as Astaire
in blackface. Now practice
placing it in a sentence: Ma, I stopped
on the way, but fuckin’ the spa
was out of papers. Notice how
the proper usage places the comma after
the conjunction or at the start
of a new sentence, as in: Fuckin’ a horse
cop had traffic stopped all down
Charles starting at Dorchester.
Never use the comma when speaking
to your boss or to a church figure,
but fuckin’ use it as much as you want
on Joan of Arc’s feast day,
patron saint of profanity, who once
chastised a soldier for swearing
by reminding him that it’s “foolish to sin
when one is so close to death.”
But we’re all close to death, Joan,
so fuckin’ fuck that. This comma, handed
down from generations of working-class
parents to their knob-spined
children peddling knockoff sunglasses
on beach towels spread out
around the fringes of Jamaica Plain.
Comma that says yes, I believe
in heaven and hell, but I’m too broke
to be scared about it. Comma that admits
there are limits to your dreams
when you live in the same row house
you were born in, so fuckin’
you joined the army right after high school
because you saw your father work
his dead-end job until they gave him a watch
and a pension too small to send you
or any of your brothers and sisters
to college. Never use the comma
out of anger. Instead, keep it as a prayer,
exalted in syntax. A promise to yourself
that God exists, and fuckin’ somewhere out there
he’s pretending to listen at least as much
as we’re all pretending to talk to him.
See more poems from Issue 15.2 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5.
