Four trifles

More than anything I long to unglove my hand and poke you where your skin is palest. I have seen the battle between ground and sky at your waist, air's wantonness and earth's modesty. Only a compromise between god and devil will unclothe that middle part of you. My finger will be waiting.

* * *

Out of an awareness of my vanity, I allowed the breath of my pirouette to extinguish the seven candles. How can I dance for my love if my mind's eye sees the firelight echoing off my contracting thighs? The motion had for the first time meaning. "Yes, I understand," he said. I danced and danced and danced in visual blindness . . . until my vanity grew ears and heard the beauteous crunching of my bones, and I danced for them. My love left and found a happy stillness.

* * *

Child -- and I do mean child -- you will no doubt give your body like all before you. Itsy-bitsy monkeyfaces make itsy-bitsy monkeykisses. You are not disgusting to me like spitty-white larvae, but you are equally unblemished and fragile. One sharp poke and you will spew in evisceration.

What would I have you do? Hold your breath and become an incandescent fog. Travel to a faraway planet and be a god. Be a pure and worshiped gas. Whisper to the munkeepeeple the words of your hymns. Caress symmion mandibles only as a last resort, when nothing else cures your uniquity.

But you will not heed me. You will rub thing upon thing as I did and do. A more powerful god than I whispers to you: the god of dogs and cats and every little thing that eats and uneats. It bids you join it under the covers, on a bed bedecked with nasal discharge, and explore your palest parts. As a leaf turns to the brightest part of day, you turn to the softest sheet.

* * *

I have asked for relief of duty, but none comes. I have asked to be as free as sadness, but they keep me rich. "Haven't you seen the vegetables in my cellar?" I ask. "Cellar -- what is?" they reply.

I want your love in my undercroft. Place your carved worship in my crypt. Sauté your loving fruits and place them in my basement. My poor dead soul wanders restless. Have you known a still-secret burial? Seen the soul wander among the entombed riches? Lightless, soundless, only cold ceramic against the bitter odor of my rotting cheek. Join me, finally.

* * *

I cannot trifle long with anything that is not a twinkling light six inches beyond the known edge of the universe.