all that blat

You grab for my hands,

instead yours come off in mine.

You hold me in your arms.

They become rigid.

They break off mannequin style,

falling down away from me.

Still, we embrace each other

as two iron willed lungs.

And you pull the plugs

to show me a map of your world

and a pin location

where I am entitled

“you are here”.

I become the pin

by talking back to you

as you become your assistant

then your secretary

then the greeter at the exit door

as I walk by

finishing these sentences

as an emotional description

told in my own words

into this court record

where you respond

by cross examining me

as I am the amnesia of some crime

yet in a coma of this awake-full-ness

but absent from the scene

where I am eating a huge pancake

as if it were a theater stage

on a plate of intimacy

and eventually

I abandon the use of utensils.

We are out of syrup,

out of butter and topic.

Rodents don’t even sniff at the words.

We are standing there

in this one place

of running away from now

surrounded by leaking vessels

filled with fluids from the past

in a warehouse of high maintenance.

We have order working over time,

working over the slippery present

with comparatives,

working with accusations

and implements fashioned

from the forge of memories.

I have a time card

filled with remarks

representing hours on demand.

I feel like temporary help.

I am invited to find the real work

of some place else.

I will be let go

but gently.

We will pretend without a fuss.

I am too talented for the job

yet unqualified.

I am awake all the time

under blankets

of your tonal managerial charm.

They are these layers,

artfully applied.

I like the autistic feel

from the rejection’s weight.

There is a smoldering fire

under the covers of diminishment.

I am warm inside.

There are logs

that we gathered as togetherness

to put on the fire

each alone.

I am to follow your lead

and by this blaze

see my way clear of you

and your circumstance

where we are supposedly singing

the same chorus

but I see only a choir of strangers.

They have music sheets

you have handed them.

They apply themselves

from the very first lines.

I don’t have a musical instrument.

I make sounds

heard as complaining.

You say,

The c.d. is on sale

any place else but here

and I can get to there easily

by leaving.

It is a c.d.

you want me to listen to

as my absence

starting now . . .