Tuesday, September 13, 2005

This Probably Will Make No Sense (Fantasy Challenge)

This Probably Will Make No Sense (Not Even to You)

For the sake of fantasy, we’re in New Orleans
right before the ballerina strips, rips
off her tutu and point shoes. I am an armless
goddess and you are an octopus.

Yes, there will be mottling, blots
that can only be interpreted afterwards,
and a mouth so hard it hurts and an unforgiving
eye that never blinks. You’ll do tricks,

change the color of your skin to blend
into the sheets, the painting of a strange
yet familiar landscape, the carpet: Urine
or sepia, dusk or violet, ocean

or cerulean. And squeeze your spineless
self into amazingly tiny places, small
as pill bottles, narrow as the neck of a sweating
Cocoa Cola. Eventually, the black sky—

the stars will swarm low and unreliable
as fireflies—will be our ceiling
and the black water—a dog will paddle past
in search of his beloved master

or vice versa—our floor. The bed,
of course, our raft. We’ll be stranded; trapped.
Only then will you wrap your flimsy limbs
around my hard body, every suction

cup gripping that slippery surface
as if to say: Everything will be all right.
But it’s my fantasy, so your gesture will be lost
on me. All bite, all white, all sight,

I’ll accidentally on purpose misinterpret.
All blight, all light, all tight;
all night. That’s when you’ll vanish
in a cloud of ink, disgusted.

1 comment:

Pris said...

Laurel..only you could come up with this fantasy:-) You write so well I imagine you could do one about two rodents making love and it would be a classic. This is a very good write!