Hairy Eyeball
More disturbing even than the spare hair around my ears
shadowing my broad tattooed back and
pined away from what used to be a kinghell widow’s peak
it’s this hairy eyeball I’m regarding things through these days
The one cartooned on mensroom walls
in every club in town
three four five namechanges ago
Cannibal Club Foot Electric Liberty Lounge
The one copped from behind the straw boss’s mirrored shades
from the substitute teacher trying to be tough
the P.O. not tolerating no mess
and my old girlfriend’s dad who I couldn’t take serious
How did it come to this?
riding herd hard on my own students who
come to class exhausted whose perspective I lose
looking down from my lectern with bad faith assumed
Or my wondrous son with his far focused mind
each day when he bursts from his third grade door
as often as not my words rein him back in
main concern to make sure he’s not forgot anything
This hairy eyeball does not sit well within my skull
and I am way too happy to share my irritation
mantle of authority wearing like a hair shirt
I’ll trash once the pilgrimage bus pulls away
Then don a holey Rat Fink T
first drawn the day after I was born
I love Rat Fink like an autistic twin
treasuring his image
Years of carrying his rubber likeness on a keychain
broke it down through totemry and hard use
These days my keys are wrangled
by a glass eyeball with a green iris
That dangles in the airconditioner vent of my old truck
rides in the pocket of my coat
thumbed like a lucky marble
lucid and blessedly hairless
W. Joe Hoppe
Posted over on the Austin Community College website
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