--- T E R E S A   L E O

He sits there, oblivious.  What if I said
G-string, tantric, curvature, spine.

Ninety-nine percent ready to bolt, the next flight,
Birmingham, leave this hundred degree

tundra of charbroiled drawls
and curtains that float.  The Sturm und Drang

of it, tapdance, but not suspect.  If I could run,
I’d fly:  America does not start

here.  Two couches beside but not equal to,
the obscene rhetoric of exposure

and ash.  What next, the paper or telephone,
transported to time zones not

in this room.  We’re flatlined, sandblasted,
pummeled, untoward.  The effacement exercise

goes something like this:
scintiscan, watershed, pivot, farce.

A pastiche, not parody, at least not
when disclosure is three or four pages

west of desire.  He must sense this,
turning to look.  There’s something to say.