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Portrait of An Imaginary Bed
Wait— I want to be sure— you still work if you are an alarm or a person
I was visiting your apartment Was it in the city you live in or was it in my city as if I live in only one city I’ve never been there where you actually live as if you live in a place isn’t solid The weather was saying “It’s going to be windy in the city” and we laughed because my family was already in the city in some other borrowed apartment or hotel my long lean descendants boys not merely boys and therefore we knew it was windy so windy the windows might shatter We laughed at the radio in this post post century you almost expect to be blown to tatters it isn’t funny but we laugh as if we were irredeemable object-bodies Everything is already happening here say it as if it were news so we are less afraid or blustered See how quickly your writing fills the page? he’s calm he’s in his body far away he does not understand he’s not understandable I said, it’s good to hear your voice. He said, is it? (my own father) his brain A poet hands me a paper notebook journal paper a booklet made of burlap or gabardine made of direct silences you made that up handwritten asks if I’ve seen this booklet it’s called “Orange” but the cover says “Ginger” in real life she didn’t write back I sit to read adamantly and only have to touch because the writing is so omnipotent set everything up with handwritten letters for instance the rest of your life Write all about how I cannot write to you how does it happen the forbidden why is the forbidden so real and the unwritten-undone I’m reading the poet’s sentences we arrived late others are leaving my family looks at me why were we late? the wind impatience but I want to start reading In the quiescent night so loudly obviously when we were busy don’t I like anything? Their leaving is too close to death as it becomes real Then a male poet crowds me you know his name it’s obvious he owns his own importance He sits not just next to me but almost on top of me Takes the book Orange or Ginger from my hands he doesn’t ask or say hello just takes it and sits so close I can’t breathe his stomach is crushing me he is reading not lovingly but quickly like an ad for speed-reading finger tracing lines He wants to demonstrate how he absorbs it’s instant and then it’s part of him though he doesn’t admit this he just steals or assimilates and eventually stands up but I never got to that part I’m stuck in his dominance that frame or loss of perspective not acknowledged I write until the pen runs out |
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