I’m earning a doctorate in indignity
And blank verse opera. I swear
I keep my mouth shut & I listen. This is how
One escalates with all one’s parts to inhabit received logic.
I’m retracing what I think I see but I’ve fallen behind
For concentrating on wrong colors, citing buried names,

Pushing the most obvious among broken arts
Of the self-defiant. Lunatic
Love. My blood type is — or
My drink is — as he shows now
Leaving me laughing under oath.