Something in the way she broods

Terrible with the wind, and cold. My drive drove me to drive faster through the driving dimples. Shivering in splinters, I thought, I like you better than my friends the butchers, though their barbecues are better. But you make me feel kicked wide of the net. Why would anybody do that? And upset. With all these innings and outings, I am engaging in avoiding engagements. Hoochie Henslow is my haberdasher and looks darling in a calabash. Snide sign by the roadside: If you ran faster, you'd live another week. Or: Youth is the secret to long life, the future. The rain came in spades and my focus squirmed like a worm evading a hook, or a book I tried not to put in my brain. Hoochie Henslow is my hairdresser and shnooks love her. I love her too, she's great! But you're cruel, and I pursue the foolish loop of runaways. Runways, roads from nowhere to nowhere, right up to the end — but sometimes I wonder about starting over. A henchman hunched on a bench with his lunch. A fidgety midget. A paper bag hag. An enraged sage. I want to get out and walk. We pull over and talk, bathing in happiness like a climbing vine of brown roses. We used to spend our days doing nothing, studying army barcodes, hoping for troop reductions. Then they gave us back our children whom we'd nursed from beyond the barricades. He handed them over. He was a man and wore a hat. I hated those spinning gates and how the world recedes behind spectacle. Like education leading to mass-produced pretention, a theatre that swallows as many as it saves. A perfect hedge planted in perfect bullshit. We walked along it, anticipating envelopes and envisioning antechambers, then pile-up in the pigpen. Oh the places we'd go if we could only jump over the fence ... an amazing suspension bridge dangling over the answer! You were right about those pants, you said after several moments of intimacy, goosebumps rippling, terribly cold without the legs, as we slithered on the grass tickled by leathery fragments, the leftover bats. Our caretakers were occupied. We could do whatever we liked.

*

"Did you know that Anthony Hopkins was Welsh?" "No."

It's Saturday and the trees are turgid and voluptuously leaved. Jumping from space he plans to break the sound-barrier, but the atmosphere huffs and puffs and the carriage returns with a headless driver, the reins tangled in your fingers, the spin, draw, and shear of the autopiloted lawnchair, under ballast and wind, fate. Clack Clack Clack. What did you say about the city of giant crustaceans? Where did you hear that, the bus? A McDonalds on the highway? Africa through YouTube? Acupuncture codex? Sitting and thinking is doing nothing at all unless you count the ripples on the waves. Worm death. Sperm breath. I count the places I could be right now and know that there are way too many. Dust on the parquet. Must in the carpet. Knowledge of good and food. Were we caught in the rain in the sculpture garden, or sprouted there, like beans? Were we sunning there on the balcony or breathing in the view? Sleeping or weeping? Conscious or blobbery? The minimalist seascape of today was painful and irritating, and now we're mindfully sinking — whatever it takes to feel just right — a warm breath coming in through the top of the head and softening the brain. And through the window, often, a dog barking or a neighbour's conversation.

*

Yes, but the sea swallows more sailors than it saves. And should we drain it? I've never seen a hummingbird at the feeder, but a blur? Maybe. And deep in the littoral, we have hummed, though thirsty, and walking around it for hours on ends. Our feet. The projects that can be summarized are summarily dismissed. We're informal here, and barely articulated. Distinct, the heart breaks. And recongeals. Like the face of an interloper surrounded by a ravenous mob ... scoundrels preying on the public nurse. People you may know? Hungry in Egypt? "We're not sure why, but it is so obvious!"

We hear moaning from somewhere near or far below us. Who can take all the bad with all the good, of a pet or a generic vegetable. I dream of vegetables, great technicolor acres, radishes of planetary radiuses, and flowers, hydroponic peonies. I've always thought they look fake, but they really smell plastic!

We tolerate the feeding frenzy. It passes like infancy, a propulsive wave of anxiety, then lush green lawns. Fantastic.

*

Lamentations. Like overwrought dental floss, grating and scritch. Hoochie Henslow on the balcony crying, ave, ave, ave. A saw B at H&M trying on shorts with his girlfriend but didn't say hello. His ass looked flat. She was someone I'd seen somewhere, at a bar, or rolling around a gasoline-filled tire. After the trampoline accident I asked her how many jumps she'd had, twenty or thirty at least, so it was okay. And now the vacancies haunt our billfolds. This house was everything I'd had. They wouldn't give us coverage because we'd burned down the place twice already. Anyway, we were just one of millions of corrugated safety-deposit boxes, easy to take back to the hideout and crack. They had so many heros. They were qualifying as they raced.

And us — we lunched in the canoe enjoying the view, men of questionable backgrounds and women with suspiciously large earrings. Yes, it is a nice dress, Max, but are you sure about it? As the interrogation continues, they sit knee to knee, practically. Bugs, I mean, microphones in the mattress! Boldly inventing our own restraints, the waves lash the oars, and the oars lash the waves.

*

A buffalo egg. Clumsy beetle calves. Our nation's grand destiny is underwater, and cold. Wouldn't it be funny if we were all on the same shelf? We'd have to share the dust and the bleaching. "To live off the earth - levitate." Now you've left, and I leave assymetrical wet footprints on the rug.

Blood pressure disaster, sugar overtaking all reason. Waves of invaders dragging behind their horses stupid jokes & bad recipes. It is not visionary, it's close your eyes & cross your fingers. The pitter patter of good conscience and inspiration. Milk on the table and adequate exercise, or a comfortable chair, to conjure whatever it is you like, my feisty deist.

It began to rain. We were over the mountains and under the weather. "Swim" I said. I was looking at him. "Do one thing right."