11/10/2022

Major Jackson

How to listen

I am going to cock my head tonight like a dog
in front of McGlinchy's Tavern on Locust;
I am going to stand beside the man who works all day combing
his thatch of gray hair corkscrewed in every direction.
I am going to pay attention to our lives
unraveling between the forks of his fine tooth comb.
For once, we won't talk about the end of the world
or Vietnam or his exquisite paper shoes.
For once, I am going to ignore the profanity and
the dancing and the jukebox so I can hear his head crackle
beneath the sky's stretch of faint stars.
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To win one must know the enemy first, and to know the enemy, one must listen carefully to what the enemy is saying. To defeat the enemy is to protect yourself. So who is the enemy? Someone I should make my friend with, not someone I should trample on and kill.