The Vitruvian Man

Revolution. Evolution. & I am
strapped to it like that man 
drawn by daVinci, limbs outstr-
etched to approximate the spokes.

Do not ask where the axle goes.

I am listening – no, not really 
listening, not deliberately. Rather
the sound pokes through the 
floorboards & I have one ear 
in contact with it, an ear that is
flattened more with each turn
of the wheel. My earrings are 
crushed, one is already torn off, 
the blood paints my neck as if
it were an external jugular.

I have drifted. That’s what pain 
does. But there is no pain, just my
being confronted with the counting 
down of a nominal two hundred 
greatest hits of the century list — &
meant by that the most popular 
songs from the last several decades
since nobody remembers anything
further back than that. Evolution.
Revolution. Chained to the wheel —
which didn't make it into the list.