Don’t Ask

The Poem

I have been standing in this desert for some time nowtrying to decide what is stranger —the pink camels,the robot in the suit holding someone else’s brainwith the specific confidence of someonewho has always held someone else’s brain —the silver woman on the roof of the pink housein the middle of the desert where no house should be —the maid at the doorwaiting for instructions that will not comefrom anyone currently capable of giving them —or the fact that nobody is mentioning any of this.

The wrench is in the sand.The rope is in the sand.I note this the way you note the thingsthat were dropped in a hurry,the things that suggest someone was fixing somethingand then stopped and didn’t say whyand left the tools where they felland the tools have been there long enoughthat they look like they belong.They do not belong.Nothing here belongs.This is the new normal,which means this is the new belonging.

The robot has a brain.It is not his brain.He is holding it the way you hold somethingthat was handed to you by someonewho said hold this and walked awayand the something turned out to be the thingthat was supposed to be steering —and now he is standing in the desert in his good suitholding the brain with both hands slightly raisedin the gesture that meansI don’t know how this happenedbut here we areand don’t ask.

Someone else’s brain

Don’t ask about the camels.Don’t ask why they’re pink.Don’t ask when pink became the color of somethingthat used to be one thingand is now another thing that nobody voted on.Don’t ask about the woman on the roofor the UFO above heror whether the UFO is hersor whether it matters whose UFO it iswhen the UFO is already above the house.Don’t ask.

The donkey is standing in the foregroundlooking at me with the expression of somethingthat has been standing in deserts for a very long time —patient, unmodified,stubbornly itself in a landscapethat has gone entirely pink and chrome around it.The donkey did not ask for the pink camels.The donkey did not ask for the robot or the brainor the silver woman or the maid or the wrench in the sand.The donkey is simply here —the one true thing in the composition,the one thing that arrived as itselfand remained as itselfwhile everything else became something else entirelyand called it progressand called it normaland called it don’t ask.

The one true thing in the frame

I have walked enough fields to knowwhat the real thing looks likewhen it’s standing next to the unreal thing —it looks like this,it looks exactly like this —ordinary, slightly bewildered,asking nothing, owed everything,standing in the desert of the new normalin the only coat it has ever ownedwhile the camels go pink around itand the robots hold the brainsand the woman on the roof waits for a signalfrom whatever is above herand the rope and the wrench lie in the sandwhere someone dropped them in a hurryand the maid stands at the doorof the house that should not be hereand the sky is the specific teal of a skythat has seen all of this beforeand has decided to be beautiful anywaywhich is either hope or indifferenceand from this distance looks exactly the same.

The donkey is still there.Still real. Still itself.Still standing in the foregroundof everything that has been normalized around it.Still asking the only question worth asking —with its eyes,with its presence,with the simple undeniable factof being the one true thing in the frame —

not don’t ask.
When did this become something we stopped asking about?