State of Being

- Jeffery Oliver

He sits on the waterlogged bench because he can. It's raining out but he has decided to sit on the bench because he can. It's close to midnight and he is sitting on a wet bench in January because he can sit wherever he wants in January whether or not it's raining and he thinks of his underwear soaking through with water from the bench which like he sits in the January rain and how is it that 32-34 is considered medium he wonders as his underwear becomes wetter and wetter because it will when one sits on a wet bench and he wonders too where the cotton came from and whether it ever sat in the rain because it had no choice, because that's where it was, in the rain and getting wet, not because it wanted to, but simply because it was.

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The Prose Poem Project. Fall 2011.