Pretty Well Adapted
I adapt pretty well
to this environment,
before I go extinct,
just like Mosasaurus in the Cretaceous
I match myself
with repetition & art;
sit by the fire with my gender identity,
hear the cat jump from a great height;
paw pads hitting the floor hard
I think I do everything
so my doctor won’t lose it,
and so the municipality where I don’t pay taxes
won’t hate me more
than custom & practice require,
and so the municipality where I seek care
won’t feel sick
because it can’t tax me
but has to demand compensation
from the municipality where I actually pay taxes
I hear Anna come home
from swim training in Råneå,
with a couple of chocolate bars I ordered
– and I lie down on the yoga mat upstairs,
with Jorge Luis Borges’ A Universal History of Iniquity on my chest,
and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Two- and Three-Part Inventions
on Spotify lossless with Katarina Krpan at the grand piano;
the flue from the wood stove downstairs
rising dead straight out of the floor,
up through the ceiling,
giving off its good warmth in Januarish
into my meditative horizontality
The Socialist Party in Sörmland calls, wants me to join
for door-knocking in the Shitville neighborhood Brandkärr,
which she pronounces as “brand-kär,” meaning “madly in love”
“No no, I’m in Norrbotten on ski training,” I reply,
with a specially written half-truth,
and think that I am no Jehovah’s Witness
as I return to Borges
Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin
Written on 2026-01-22 at 19:54
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