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.