Not This Year

Carson D. is up in the soundbooth
looking below at the millions
and right there in front of Dick Clark
and everyone he announces
how much people depend on virtual communities

and suddenly I am there with my cock in my hand
and we are all there caught cock handed and dumb-founded
internet porn and gore news chi-ching in our eyes like
the casinos they put up all over the state
to rob the poor my father says
but mom argues they can’t manage their own money anyway
better to just take it and take care of things from the counter

but don’t you think, says Carson
this is some kind of sign
reaching out for human contact
motion in unision

the whole crowd red with matching hatsChevy
Chevy Chevy!

from down the square the news woman
takes a poll
who’re you going to kiss at the strike of twelve
family
friend
lover
stranger?
and these girls Carson they just want you
he says
“I will take them all”
news girl provides the smooch sound effects
while they blow kisses

12:02 my husband makes his way over to my chair
we kiss upside down
it has been a good year
now let’s go giddey up
find me someone to adore
and god forbid my dreams come true?
no no no
don’t you steal my dreams
don’t punish me with the wildest
fuck, I don’t even think my body can bend that way

You dominate my thoughts

somehow we let Milan Kundera’s
lightness of being float off
as heaviness of reality
pulled lip corners low
we catch stars
only on the way down
down
down burned
into dust in the sky
can we believe his words

once

is

nonce

and pretend this never happened?
you have Ayn Rand on your side
I have Anais Nin on mine
did she give you permission
some kind of intellectualized reason
to snap me into non-existence
erase me, the one who no longer followed suit
in your pursuit of happiness

last I heard you were in an accident
and I wonder if your life tripped
through an accelerated slideshow
and could you reduce me into a
a single screen capture?

you answered with silence

and then more silence

leaving me to invent myself as in your dream
and wakeful memory until all goes black
except me and Anais and our colored notebooks
reporting and revising your fingertips
that strung down my ribs as you asked
“Fernie, when when are you going to open up to me?”
trying with half a heart to untie corset laces pulled tight
tight into forced breath

my scene: you in the white towel
our scents fresh erased
I watch from the bedroom
you forget to put on that famous smile
your face, fallen, sullen, shows your age
as you tuck in the remnants of the evening
and wonder how it moved so fast
you, already in tomorrow without me

and Anais tells me
no! don’t fret so! this is not our Henry
we were ready to let him go
don’t you remember?

we cannot fold back into days of dominated thoughts
gobbling down each other’s words and fingers for breakfast
I didn’t think you would figure us out so quickly
and I do not suppose
it would be within your philosophy
to call goodbye
down from that straight and narrow path you walk
as you train for perfection
without a moment free to
kick down a sharp rock
break my circle
give me my laces back