John Perreault - Boomerang

Why is everything I do in my life like a boomerang?
I throw the paper airplane out the window
and the wind sends it back.
I spit against the wind.

You bought me a fur boomerang for my birthday.
I hate you now. You are so rich.
You are such a consumer.
And I hate your boomerang.
But I can't throw it away.
It keeps coming back and hitting me
in the back of the head.

In a rooming house I lived in once
I knew a boy who had a handmade boomerang.
It was fifteen inches long.
What a beautiful gigantic handmade boomerang.
Every Sunday he practiced throwing it away,
in Central Park, by that sailboat lake.

People always talked to him and followed him.
Everybody wanted to see his boomerang.

...But boomerangs are dangerous.
When you fool around with boomerangs
you have to know what you're doing.

Congratulations, incidentally, on the birth
of your brand new baby boy boomerang.
How amazing
that no matter where you leave him
in the morning he is always
in that basket, on your doorstep.

I had a dream about a boomerang race.
I lost.

But do I really know what it means?
Do I know what anything means?

I kiss your amorous aluminum boomerang
and the edges are so sharp
my tongue gets sliced,
my words get sliced
and my lips are able to smile in two directions.

And I think it would be nice to own a boomerang store.
Glass boomerangs.
Australian aborigine boomerangs.
Rubber safety boomerangs.
Regulation boomerangs for boomerang contests.
And even automatic talking doll boomerangs.

But why is everything I do in my life like a boomerang?
I throw away my life
and my life comes back.

John Perreault

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/boomerang/