Richard Prins

Samson’s Blues

Slaying a thousand men with a sharp donkey
jaw is what I'd like to do, because she's leaving

and cleaving's meant the strongest part of me
was shorn, dustpanned, bagged. I can't chase

because I'm naked and God's a dandruff flake
my split ends shed. Believing meant chewing

on a hangnail then blowing it off my tongue
to prune the future's pain. One thing I need

is three hundred foxes, rusty dashes of panic
in our garden, with torches wagging on their

flicky tails, igniting the crooked rhododendrons
we planted there. I don't want no torch to gouge

my eye sockets, make me fire-blind, begging God:
Pour your best hooch on my wounds, let me sleep

three thousand years. My bones leap off the couch.
The rest of me, glutinous with sweat, sucks leather.

God, you gave me too much honey and muscle.
If I had my way, I wouldn't tear nothing down.

I'd go to the park, watch ducks squabble for any grain
the old ladies toss. Soon it rains; a strangeness looms.

The grannies don't notice, for trees are their shields,
and the ducks stay put because they're still peckish.

God, please remember me. Let me see your rain
sketching circles in the water. The ripples dilate,

unraveling your design, until they collide
and pierce each other. Formless with urge,

they vanish like solutions I can't decipher:
Rafts of bread, buoyant as your embrace.

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Richard Prins is a lifelong New Yorker. Publications include Gulf Coast, jubilat, Ploughshares, and "Notable" mentions in Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing. Arrests include criminal trespass (Trump Tower), disorderly conduct (Trump International Hotel), resisting arrest (Republican National Convention) and incommoding the halls of Congress (United States Senate).