Yeah, you can go about your daily shufflings and frettings, confident that
your betrayals to your friends are good business, good for the company, and
good for America, but your crawlspaces stink of rotten fruit. All of
us just laugh as you turn your head back over your shoulder and sniff
discreetly, puzzled.
Late at night the men gather secretly at the precipice, and dare
one another to eat chemicals, or glass, to endure having their
skin punctured, or their tongues burnt with matches.
Men who do not join them cannot put their finger on it, but they
know they are being excluded somehow, and they don't get the
promotions they deserve.
After I'm dead, thrust your fingers into the parmacety in the secret
cavities of my skull, and there you will find the microfilm.
The fashionable girls all get their irises replaced with mirrored
disks. You ought to do it too, because the boys will be lining up
at your door. It's a little hard on the eyes at first. Sometimes
the light is searing, burning you through, and sometimes the world seems
dim and dread when everyone else can see fine, but it's a small
price to pay for real beauty. Or you could wait. I hear that
next year you'll be able to get irridescent ones.
If you go out and look down the hillside, you can see Anna tangoing alone
across the grass, past the goats, with a wild rose clenched between
her teeth.
Shall I tell you a secret? It's a small secret, but no one else
knows. When I'm sure I'm alone, say, driving the freeway in
my car, or wading at the edge of the fens watching the cranes
strut and the plovers dive, or huddled with my balled fists and
cheek pressed against the cool tiles in a public bathroom,
I make noises. Moans, chirps, growls, cries, all sorts of inarticulate
and animal noises, as loud as I dare. I think it's because I'm
praying, but I don't know for what.
two
three
four
five
six
This morn's mares ran afield.
