Description
The Accidental Conception of the New Century
In basements with a square of shag, support beams, view of the furnace, a corduroy couch; in brake or bush without removing the corset; in the winter of gas-tax, and in the morning there was no one left in the trundle but him; the man whom I thought I had married, but all along it had been a fake; in the back of the limousine with glass unicorns and pink champagne; or in bachelor complexes that landscape with harrow and drag-teeth; window sills piled with pizza rinds, beer bottles like sentries; places I was not supposed to be; inside his cell delivering the tin bowl and rag; his mom out of town playing golf and we have the whole afternoon until the little sister returns from the Turtle Frolick; or our eventual confession of love for each other, the ribbon untied from my throat. “Come here for a minute, Come sit over here$$ patting the buffalo robe, the cold metal bleacher; my head a swirl of snow, hand brushing his trousers, the thought: I just want to be slanted sunlight passed beneath his door; I don’t want to be a highway-bouquet, hair-jewelry kept in a box. I can be tiny and rattling inside as the room grows sloppy; his mouth too big, missing my mouth, my shirt and jeans in the crack between the waterbed and the wall; nothing but straw in my hair and the sound of distant musketry. My thought: he still has his tube socks on, naked and rising from the bed at 4:22pm looking for condoms; “Maybe Dave has some$$ he says, about to walk down the hall to the port where a crowd is breaking bottles on the bow of the newest ship, and I think I will give him this present this once, as if I am the queen and he is the body of enlisted men, me with my powdered wig, wooden tooth, and Foxy Lady belt-I will give him this present if he really wants it so bad, of myself. “Come back here$$ I say, “I can show you how.”
