Brian says if I’m going to give Austen
another chance, I should try Persuasion, but
that man’s a walking editorial filled with
random acts of gratuitous, in the bushes,
panty-fondling. Like the way my pregnant wife
slouches towards the fridge in the low light
of an early April evening—the dark pouching
under the eyes of the whole of the room—
the blandest form of no-comment comment.
The de-canopied tent-bones of the flea market
abandoned to a gray echo of a police siren
off a concrete parking structure. You try surviving
another John & Yoko silent film. Five days in
a black hole, now what? How many times
will I fall for the same hocus-pocus bullshit
tunnel entrance painted on a brick wall? What
does a sailor say when you ask him the difference
between a boat & a ship? A conspiracy.
                                     A crime
of passion. A husband & wife sharing a pair
of glasses to read the bistro menu. Some
might call this compromise. Yes, let’s
                       call this compromise.