5575 Shasta Way, Klamath Falls, Oregon; Or, “97603”

if the subject is dead, then

who am i? am i?

object? i fit myself into a nation, palimpsest-like, trying, trying through innumerable pieces of paper: birth-certificates, marriage licenses, the genealogical necessity of demonstrating, certifying paternal non-existence,

looking over piazzas, through corridors, do i not exist, too? is the author dead? the birth of the salesman is contemporary with the death of the author.

& where did it some of it begin? an escape: mia madre scappa

my mother escapes (circa 1986) from 5575 Shasta Way, address envelopes with Klamath Falls, Oregon

97603 US of A

& yet this is Altamont. not even incorporated, more places between documentation, definition, [she/it] returned + married // 5575 Shasta Way

Italian father, US-American mother – Pillsbury Dough Boy, Kellogg’s Cornflakes, Quaker Oats, Cream of Wheat, Crisco, Biscuits and Gravy, Green Eggs and Kevin Bacon, Slippery Floor-mats Pretending To Be People

& then, i? adopted by Portuguese, first-gen immigrant grandmother & five-gen immigrant Irish grandfather, although nothing is grand here except exceptional suffering and what might be called, fashionably, heteropatriarchy co-dependency

between this certificate and that certificate, between this court order and that conviction, i wonder:

am i an object of the imaginings of a great hand of bureaucratized brutality fallen through desperate Jehovah Witnessing fanatics & the lunatic fringe of society called The Law which occupying both center and periphery in an incredibly loud Ugly Dance of Non-Existence? when time once called upon me, i see mother giving birth to child & then at moment of death becoming child, so that future death is present at birth; inescapable hell? no, the documents do not turn ever so neatly over every old woman and new baby, & sometimes an errant old, Elvin / alien soul finds its way into Marshall Hospital. Placerville, California, US of A.

if, now, this subject is dead, you can’t all object: for a trillion beings will fill your mouths – ((Kathy, Cyndi, Shelby, e e e e eek!)) – : & hold you screaming silently, until at the moment of your death, you will know,

I AM.

5575 Shasta Way, Klamath Falls, Oregon, 97603, USA / Image Courtesy: Google Street View