Art According to Curly

by Alan Shapiro

He never learns.
When brother Moe
holds a fist out
saying hit this
he hits it and surprise!
the fist wheels round
to bop him
on his own head —
over and over
and all this while
the world is after him,
on the run from cop,
landlord, boss, or wife
until he ducks
into a fancy
kitchen and donning
apron and chef
hat white as the
f lour he dumps
on counter, as the paint
he mistakes the milk
for and the salt
he thinks is sugar
while he kneads it all
together up to his
elbows in it
he can’t help sing,
he’s singing in that
La-Li la-la la-li
la-la falsetto
paradise of his own
making that makes
nothing useful
aping use — and
when the boss
the wife the cop
the real chef
blows by him through
the kitchen as even
brother Moe
blows by enraged
and blaming him
for everything it’s like
he can’t be seen
he can’t be touched,
as if the singing
walled off the body
that otherwise
is just the bull’s
eye of every hurt
conceivable, a singing
slapstick shield
of Achilles that
protects only
the shield maker
and only while
the shield is
being made —
with glittery bitch
slap on this panel
and bright eye
gouge on that
and in the middle
a cake the mucky-
mucks gag on
and the jig
is up and there
he is running
in place beside
a bronze Moe
holding a bronze
fist out and saying
hit this, so he does.