By Dreamsome
Date: 19 December 2000

The Rapture

The tongue twisting, mumbling, and
moaning, calling out, shouting
instructions, legs buckling,
scalding where the flesh grinds
against flesh, the veil of seduction
dropped, the quick and shallow breathing...

(outside truck tires whistling, a child 
on a bike, but muffled, as if the
gagged world were boiled down to 
liquid, capped, pharmaceutical,
a store where sickness is soothed),

then the acquired things:
this borrowed from what she did
with someone else, that from what
he once saw, this from magazines,
the once shamed and detonated 
flesh now truculent and delectable,
then the seizure, the moment
nothing more than rapid eye movement,
mere transparency, followed by
declarations and snail-like
withdrawal, the dreaded afterwards,
the schism and the questions,
the heart beginning to stutter
and calm, space coming back
into focus, coming back too quickly:
the night table, the poem book,
the clock, the bright flickering 
candles, everything that refuses
to change pulsing with solidity.

Then it's back:  the anonymous clutter
of the avenue, ravenous looks reflected
in every store front so nothing's left
but a flash of a body part,
a sensation dimly lit, scored like
film and fluttering.