ah! but when i remember that talk works in circles, i don’t just tramp—i dance down along the round. and we take our turns of nodding, locking elbows like professionals. and when the words run out, mopey eyes gyrate just as well. walk me to that dining room table. i’ll sit comfortably and watch the screen.

it’s the familiarity that i can’t bear. meaning it’s the only thing that i stand for.

the room holds a couple dozen round and perfectly similar tables. announcements made but unmade in the clatter make her attempt to remember the last time she attended a basement dance party. but no, that is done; there are new soundtracks to be made. too bad the first sounds seem so orchestrated.

and, then, that day on the green comes rushing back. he exists as a signpost, a lamppost really. the scene of the crime is more memorable than the crime itself. it took only a push and look to commit.

but, back to the present, because this is an adult’s life, and it won’t wait. and now she is eating, filling that chair and describing herself in less than 100 words.

but a greedy bite of mashed potatoes goes horribly wrong. with a slip and a grind, severed. the tip of the plastic swimming around, white in white.

but there can’t be no coming out if there ain’t no need of creation.
there can’t be no coming out if i possessed the pleasure before.

and i remember—this was out in my sleep in my eat in my washing in my doing before i ever started. here i am registering this new look—a new place gives us not a clean slate but an eraser—with the same old senses. i am revising, reading these pages with a magnifying glass. fashioning not from dirt but from silk.

love poetry ain’t necessary no more.
my penis came from a package showing me, theory on the ground, that destiny is anatomy.

no more cosmo girls, maxing out, milling about morbid.
i ain’t locked with them in smoke-filled rooms.

when we hang on, it’s only for the good(s).

sounds from a southern summer—the entree of southern life—aren’t supposed to mean anything unless they are served with side dishes of good southern relations between good southern men and women. and those side dishes must meet in the middle, run into each other like creamed corn goos over into fried okra.

“yeah, ain’t she just a little queer?”

where is that line—that cut off—between playing tag, our bodies flat in their homogeneity, and playing at house behind the shed, in the last room in the back of the house? here is the day on the calendar when the bra goes on and there can’t be shorts….the boys are looking.

“but she’s just a little queer,…
ain’t she?”

and looking into that web of branches won’t let you find no root. because fucking is what is done but no one supposed to see fucking so overalls mean pee-pees and dresses mean vaginas. southern genitalia means southern genesis and genesis is the book one reads around here.

“she just don’t have no interest.
i wasn’t so queer when i was a child.”

when is it that the girlfriends need to become the girl friends? and there is your grand-mama threatening to slap you silly. and there is your mama saying, “hush!” and there is your daddy, you better just hit the road and hope it don’t hit back.

“but won’t you look at that little queer?
like a frog preferrin’ trees to lily pads,
like a cat preferrin’ water to dry land.”

but in the southern wilderness,
in the southern summer,
turns out,
cats in water and frogs in trees
ain’t so hard to come by.

myself, uncanny, in the mirror in the little lonely box that is the hotel room. how strange to be a stranger and how easy to be a stranger when speaking to strangers. and naked too, standing there dripping.

a considerable amount of hair twisting, into the mouth, sliding through the hand, bunched on the top to remind me of olden times when women always wore their hair up in order to not look sexy. now, up is for sexy. but, then again, so is down. everything is sexy.

the thing i learned today, which is somehow different from the things i saw today:

i must have stopped washing my hands with soap whenever my mother stopped watching me go to the bathroom. and this non-washing washing went on for many years until i started worrying about staying alive longer which never seemed to matter. i have almost no emotions attached to anything that does not provide reciprocity.

i try to read the displeasure of her face, the snarl of surprise? perhaps disbelief that after so many years, things seem just the same.

yet all those little particulars that i used to admire don’t seem quite as refining.

her good judgment; alas, judgmental-ness.
her unique name; i’ve heard it.

beer goggles work on our histories.

i hold her in my hand like a dainty tea cup, but i am much too stark for such a dish.

i stand in the shower like they do in the films. my head is bent under the current; my back towards the door. the water is much too hot, steam rises everywhere, and in one motion, i flip up my hair in reverse waterfall, wiping the liquid from my eyes so i can breath a sigh and see again.

do i hear a sound in the inner portions of my home? a door? a bump? a bang? i practice what i will say to mr. robberman with weapon:

“stop! don’t shoot!” tired and true.

how about, “you don’t have to do this. take my money and be gone!”

no, i will say, “hello, mr. robberman. how nice of you to stop by. you’ll find the good china in the cabinet above the refridgerator. i understand desperate times call for desperate measures.”

you see, i prefer comedy.

but then the sound becomes more real and almost paralyzed with fear i know there is no planning and sneaking out of the shower, i am naked and venerable and my feet wet the carpet and i almost can’t breath and i think, “what will be there right around this corner? will it be the end of life?”

oh, my, it is only the cat!

i bow and exit to the left for a sandwich.

“how are you?” she asked.
from behind the transparent curtain, the person replied, “what do you mean?”
the steam made her eyes water.

“i mean, how are you doing?”
“well, that’s a fine question.”
“it was just a question.”

the water turned off in a hurry. new knowledges remake old memories like filters remake pictures.

the shower curtain was pulled back, and the glimpse of naked flesh made the v between her legs as wet as the body of her companion. the flesh was quickly concealed for they were having none of it today, and a splash of water from a departing foot put out the fire like only water could.

still standing in the puddle, she said, “god damn that nail.”

but lately, my stomach growls too much, and i can’t concentrate. i stand in the light of the performance floor, peering, peeping, peeking out into the groups as they decline to dance, ignoring my side-show, dismissing my act. their heads are swollen like dead balloons as they comment on everything but do nothing.

“step right up! witness anxiety and fear in the flesh!”

but they do nothing. i am all stopped up.

i can’t live on these scraps; i must eat you all at once. at times, those little things you do escape my attention. i miss the little bunny on the side of the highway for he blends into the brightly colored fabric of green so well. but when i am starved of you, i feel every beat, every quiver, every moment of your mouth directed at anything that might resemble me.

i move about, but really, i’m motionless. my drive has gone when you live as ghost.