'Holes in Your Story', by Philip Jason
what’s weird about celebrities
is that people visit their gravesites.
That means their bones are famous.
For doing nothing. Think about
all the hope we could have
for I don’t know let’s say world
peace or all-you-can-eat pancakes
suddenly bringing together
the estranged members of the
human family and it’s being drained
off into those bones. You don’t
have to understand the science
just know that it reminds me
of those cartoon characters
who disappear into fake holes.
Actually, it reminds me of the
unseen characters who toil
away all day making those holes.
I can’t imagine that’s a healthy
work environment all that absence
and some needles and thread
in a crowded basement I bet
seventy hours a week because
the holes are still making people
laugh on the reg. No one knows your
name or even notices what handling
those empty fibers and the tiny
needles is doing to the thin skin
on your fingers. You’re growing
older one hole at a time trying
not to think as often as you want to
about making a hole large enough
to drop the whole world into. In fact
90% of your job is not thinking
about dropping things into holes
and you do it even though you’re
not very good at it. Every day
one to 2 hundred instances you
don’t think about dropping
everything into holes. It’s
exhausting and over time your
eyes which once held a certain
organic solarity start to resemble
vacant fabrics but if you stick
with it and are lucky enough
some guy who plays golf four times
a week looks you in your eyebrows
once a year and says: who knows
you’re a good one one of the best.
maybe you’ll be famous someday
for being a pile of bones.
Philip Jason’s stories can be found in Prairie Schooner, The Pinch, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, and J Journal; his poetry in Spillway, Lake Effect, Hawaii Pacific Review, Pallette and Indianapolis Review. He is the author of the novel Window Eyes (Unsolicited Press, 2023). His first collection of poetry, I Don’t Understand Why It’s Crazy to Hear the Beautiful Songs of Nonexistent Birds, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. For more, please visit philipjason.com.
