cubing

it was the first
four-sided august.
fruit grew that year 
with perfect right angles 
instead of round as it always had.
people remarked, "this is 
so much easier to stack."
i wondered, "what did we do differently?"
walls of apples & walls of lemons
& walls of peaches & plums.
citadels of fruit. praise effeciency. 
made everything cubed.
cars & weddings & wives.
people used to sit like crowbars 
but then they ate the fruit 
& could only use right angles.
tightness & delight. 
a shape is a way of being.
my shoulders used to
hold a bundle of the earth.
frenzy. every round object 
became too round. rolled 
down our giant hill towards 
the square ocean. all beaches 
that used to be jagged &
jutting, now sharp. 
seam between sand & surf.
i held onto a marble.
a single glass marble i had found
when the sun was still a sphere.
light glinted across its surface.
in the dark of my bedroom
i contemplated whether or not
i should swallow it. imagined it as
a little ripe berry or 
minitature planet. i have always
wanted to devour my life. 
the ghosts that eat planets.
four-walled rooms & four-walled hallways
& the growing towers of fruit.
we are fed aren't we? are we?
i place the marble on my tongue.
i am waiting to be a rowboat 
or a thumb. dear god,
what i wouldn't do to become
one of the hula hoops that used to
rush past on its way to oblivian.