Thursday, June 18, 2009
Personal
It was a two-dimensional bubblegum bubble shivering outwards
in a viscosity of glass, backlit by a sun so huge
everything was in X-ray. The infinitely larger world
of my nails and skin could never be fathomed by these beings.
This is what a global pandemic looks like at close range:
Atomized feeling of fever and pain: an inward distance
beyond ourselves: the quiet colony of refugees in a corner of our anatomy.
The great internal cavity: unknown, no longer inhabitable.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Plums in Honey
What has become of the dating game? Let’s see:
Ernesto revels in his love-beads as Angela bakes her treasured lemon-cake.
The entire den is subdued. Leo warns of his rising ire
but we’re not talking about Pompeii.
The Pimpernels have consumed their third packet of Student Feed
in this era of wasabi-coated peas.
Bernard slips out with Pat for a joint. Pat comes back
showered in a Roman triumph of soap-stone cones.
Poetry is the object here, but are we really motivated?
Bernard lounges on the porch dreaming of a steak and beer night
alone in the Ardennes, the two children asleep.
Leo names them in a cheap move to bring down the house.
This morning Eve saw a small group,
cupping their hands at the edge of the pool.
A fourth stood back playing a button accordion.
He sang of perspiring empires and nights
beneath the Mario Plaza. We got jealous.
So jealous, in fact, that text messages flew around the room
with no lines of sight. When you’ve nothing to say
sing it, when you’ve nothing to think …
… and so on. Plums in honey. That sort of thing.
Otherwise, there’s shopping with the Bin Ladens in the Via Barbuino.
At least we can tag along, unlike the no-show Pope.
I promised mum, yes Joan, mum, with her crook knee and mean tortellini.
Here she is. We had a date at the fiftieth.
The years only leave us with speculation.
They are our touch judges. Our concreters.
Filling the gaps where our bodies had been. The olive oil skin, the acacias,
the footprints on the beach like a Bolivian heiress.
