tutorials

last night
i was juggling oranges
and teaching my grandmother
how to throw playing cards
with a wrist snap
that could make them stick into a watermelon,

i had two beers
and felt vandalized
so i left with a woman
to the edge of the universe
where we found Knowledge
in the form of comic books
ornately concieved
and humble in their plain truths.

i'm such a girl
named this Steven
i get disgusted and embarassed by young men
when i have to arrive at their dens
and set things straight
like in October
when i almost got murdered
by a Mexican street gang
over a pack of cigarettes
that arrived at my house
somehow
well somehow
i tracked down the gang member
and gave him twenty dollars
for the Marlboro Reds
that had been misplaced
and he invited me in for a Heineken
where I taught his chidlren
physics on sheets of sharp printer paper,
boy had I never known
smarter kids.