To a Maple (audio only)
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writing on the bruised
body and seeing into the
bruise’s locked backyard, not
psychoanalyzing the incursion
but appreciating its scissory
up and down
———————
remembering the wish
to be Anaïs Nin—
———————
sell me a clip-on bow-tie or a mock fringe chapeau worn on the collarbone—a new style of “shoulder hat,” a cape to protect your shoulders from rain and chill and to prevent the wearer from sliding (like Mickey Mantle) into a third gender __________ now I’ve reached the “clinker” zone of perforated opportunities __________ —perforated appurtenances ____________ but then Edith Piaf suddenly thrilled me __________ a newly discovered Venezuela, a view— ____________ a rendre compte, a liar on the corn
Into the unisex nursery's toilet my undershirt falls. I fish it out and find my face on a marquee. Florida: in sneakers, I construct Delft shelves to store scrawled diagnoses. I enter an observation tank (rightly considered tragic, irreversible) to greet the hatchetfaced magician whose dead mother says welcome back, implying I've been fired. Through Skinner Box glass he watches me play with dildos, blades. Entranced by unending orgasm, I dismiss his tendency to find amelioration in experience's fluctuating shallows.