I'm Running for President

Throwing my hat into the ring.

I believe every dog turd is a sundial

when the sun is out, and when the moon is out

every buffoon is a poet, and wisdom is anything

an idiot will pay to find out

no matter what heavenly body is visible,

and I’m running for President.

I sew closed the neckholes of my sweatshirts

then sew beltloops along their bottom hems

and slide my legs through the sleeves

because I wear sweatshirts like pants—

and I cut the crotches out of all my sweatpants

for my head to go through

because I wear sweatpants like shirts

with my arms through the legs—

and I’m running for President.

Whenever I successfully pass through a doorway

I turn around and point a wry grin

at the door, and I fist-bump the doorknob

like the door and I are dramatic foils

who’ve finally learned how to work together

at the end of a buddy-cop epic—

and I’m running for President.

I believe that ‘Christ’ rhymes with ‘fist.’

I believe babies should get braces

on their baby teeth.

I believe the ‘b’ in ‘subtle’

should not now, nor should it ever be,

silent—

and I’m running for President.

I take power naps on diaper-changing stations

in the bathrooms of casual restaurants.

I put peanut butter on both sides of one slice

and jelly on both sides of the other

and then eat the sandwich with gloves.

I fold paper airplanes out of calendar pages

then fly them through the rain

less to say anything profound about time

than because old calendars tend to pile up

and the paper they’re made of is usually thick

enough to cut through falling water

without immediately falling out of the sky—

and I’m running for President.

I’m always marching under arching

trellises of roses not yet in bloom,

bloviating epiphanies.

I’m always wearing sunglasses in crowded cafés

to hide my eyes because I’m crying

from all the epiphanies,

and when I go to the bathroom and bend

down to flush, my sunglasses inevitably

fall into the toilet, and when I rush out

to ask the barista to borrow some gloves

with which to fish them out,

my pants are always down around my ankles—

and I’m running for President.

Did you know that since primordial times

certain columns of open air

were predestined to become elevator shafts?

Did you know that all restaurant fare

in the world is secretly made

in a single underground kitchen

and sent to every commercial kitchen on the surface

through a network of pneumatic tubes?

Did you know that if you spread your arms out

wide and spin around really fast

for a really long time, then suddenly hold your head

still with your hands, you can see all of history at once?

These and more are the mysteries I store

in my mind, that I’ll be sharing even more

of with my friends—

when I become the President of them.

I’ll sign legislation like I’m sending a cinderblock

to the sea through the bottom of a glass bottom boat.

Picture a giant bowl of Caesar salad

shot out of a Civil War-era cannon: chunks of crouton

biting huge holes in the enemy’s meadows,

veils of topsoil thrown up to the height of the clouds,

cavalry officers clotheslined by strips of romaine

speeding through the air at the speed of sound—

these are how I’ll do things in general.

Like a shadow swinging a briefcase

heavy with evidence en route to sue

into oblivion the thing that casts it

in the great unbribable outdoor courtroom of the sun,

I’ll shoulder a golden boulder the mass of the moon

through the same needle-eye in the Bible

that rich people aren’t supposed to be able

to ride camels through—and I’m running for President.

At dawn on my inauguration,

I’ll pen a permanent declaration

removing all the diaper-changing stations

in the bathrooms of casual restaurants

in the weeks before and after Halloween

because those things are usually white

or off-white, and when you walk in,

for a second, they look like

elongated, wall-clinging ghosts

and people are already scared enough as it is.

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A version of this poem with slight alterations appears in my second book of poetry, Returning the Sword to the Stone.