Paige Taggart

From To People Who Sometimes Read

Today I spoke on the phone with a customer with the last name Marquez; I almost asked if he was related to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Or if he had heard of him, at least, if he had read, "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," or "Memories of My Melancholy Whores." The man, Ernesto, was calling from El Paso. His voice sounded youthful, about thirty-four, he ordered a pre-amp for his guitar with some vintage tone control. I said that's very Marquez of you, going for a little magical realism. I almost said, what was the travel like, from Columbia? He now resides on Star Fish Court, "two separate words," he said. Something in his voice annunciated an above average devotion to language.

I email everyday: an affectation, current nerves reiterate the past. I tell you about my dreams, and such-and-such key-players. You were in the last one. I guess we did heroin on a cliff and I saw god. I woke-up feeling faint with an undesirable clicking underneath my skin; a thread of galaxies through my liver. My obvious nature is put-on, for people to observe. Besides this is an omen. The bad characters in films fill me with sadness. A whistle trying to find a tune for the villain inside me to burst through.

I'm thinking of the way history becomes perfunctory. Staring at its insulted past and parting from it. I'm small but I can breakdown its effects in a certain state of mind. My family is so tied up in it, and I'm not doing a damn thing— not a political bone in me. If I laid an egg as a chicken does, I may even eat it, oh wait, that's immoral or some weird polysci-libido. Yesterday I broke down and took the train to who-knows-the-fuck where.

I'm at work; I walked through an avalanche to get here and came out the other side with snow makeup and a snowy halo. My ribs are crashing in— it felt this way before the blizzard. I am still shipping strings and guitars, nothing will stop us. I'm trapped behind the glass of a snow globe, the overhang of fluorescent lights stream into my subconscious, there's far less oxygen than I can handle. Our off-spring hopefully won't have to work the way we do. I could be a spokesperson for barley wheat. How often do you read something and realize you are living without any creative inventions? Why does it feel like I've been scouted for an average baseball team. The Wizards?

Paige Taggart's chapbook Polaroid Parade is forthcoming with Greying Ghost Press. Recent or forthcoming work can be found in the following journals: No Tell Motel, Glitterpony, Forklift Ohio, Spinning Jenny, Bateau, So and So Magazine, RealPoetik, Sentence. Peruse her blog: http://mactaggartjewelry.blogspot.com/