He is made of vapors and I,
a glitter trough beneath
the wool-lining of my winter’s jacket
too smart, us both, to go caught
in someones-watching’s periphery
or darkroomdiscovery
when the P.I.s get their rolls in play.

We drag along our respective
significantothers
in their hospital beds
shackled to our ankles
in their vegetative states
wearing gauzes as blindfolds
pissing neon into their catheter bags
with every sip we give ‘em
of icedcoffeesandlemonades
in the winterspassing
dripdripdrip (mine which is his)
dripdripdrip (his which is hers)
till I escape a giggle and a “heh”
at the irony—

here, I wear mine's oxygen tank
as a fashionable accessory
and there's my matching diamond ring
gathering its banging dust bunnies
...Oh! There pops another.
...Oh! There pops another.

We sit in our adjacent tables
talking Morse Code
tapping out our conversation
(my long nails/ his plastic lighter
to the glass-top by our own ashtrays),
wearing our disguises
and our Groucho Marx-es displays
ain’t nothing we can be made
(conspicuous as spies,
are we—so cleverly)

A seven-legged spider crosses between us
and even he with his diagonal-dance,
limping absolute indifference
to stepssteps by like an anemic crab
for all his side-ways glancing
all the secrecy about him
goes not a notice taken.

And, whence after we go our
still-separate ways as this affair would have it
to celebrate in via satellite.

02/03/2009

Posted on 02/03/2009
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