Let’s Accept Hate; Sharpening my Oyster Knife by Antonio Vallone

Antonio Vallone

Start with hating the things of the world—water, air, the earth itself—dirt

and all its organisms. Hate animals, birds, insects, Those pesky insects. Hate literature. Hate history. Hate science and all ideas.

Hate truth.

Hate everything but money, and then hate money, too. When you hate all things, begin to hate people. Hate people of other races or religious affiliations. Hate people whose sexual orientation Is different than your own. If you’re a man, hate women. Hold them under your boot heel. If you’re a woman, you probably have enough reasons to hate men, maybe not individual men but the concept. If you’re well, hate the ill and disabled.

If you’re ill and disabled, hate those who are well.

If you’re old, hate whoever is younger simply for their youth. If you’re young, hate the old

and all their groans. Blue collar workers, Hate white collar workers

And their sickening odor of envelopes. White collar workers, hate the blue, the filth trapped under their fingernails, the grit worked into their skin. Northerners hate Southerners

with confederate flags folded in cedar chests. Southerners hate northerners

smug in their ancient victory. Hate the Midwest.

Hate both coasts.

Hate Mexico and the Middle East.

Hate China and all of Europe. Hate Japan and the technology risen out of the mushroom cloud

that we’re addicted us to. Hate Canada

for looking too much like us through all their politeness. Democrats, hate Conservative Republicans. Republicans, hate Democrats. Hate third-party voters. Hate non-voters.

When you run out of people different in some way,

anyway, for you to hate, hate those most like you but not you. Hate your friends. Hate your family. Hate your children

who look like you and remind you too much of yourself. And when there is nothing and nobody left to hate, hate yourself. Hate yourself so much your physical presence is reduced to pure hate, like the body of a road killed deer left out in summer weather

is reduced to a puddle of black sludge, unrecognizable as something that ever took a breath, but, as you look into it, wondering what it was, captures in its oily sheen the reflection of your face.

Antonio Vallone

Quintuple heart bypass, cancerinfiltrated kidney surgically removed, dialysis three times a week for the rest of my life unless, in five years,

yearly Cat scans declare I’m cancer free and eligible for a transplant (if only I can find a donor), amputation of two toes, and…

Friends ask, repeatedly,

how I remain

upbeat, therapist and happy drugs free. I shrug

and quote Zora Neale Hurston: “No, I do not weep at the world. I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife,”

prying open whatever crusty, clamped-shut bottom-dweller fate sets in front of me, searching for their illusive pearls.

Antonio Vallone, associate professor of English at Penn State DuBois, founder of MAMMOTH books, poetry editor of Pennsylvania English, co-founding editor of The WatershedJournalLiteraryGroup. Publishedcollections: The Blackbird ’ s Applause, Grass Saxophones, Golden Carp, and Chinese Bats. Forthcoming: American Zen and Blackberry Alleys: Collected Poems and Prose. Hecanbereachedatajv2@psu.edu