Wednesday, June 17, 2009

in the mashed banana sunlight of Labor Day morning

"Amanda's mouth eased into a long slow smile. Her eyes grew as bright as violet silk. "Yes. Yes," she muttered. "The monarch." She stared at Ziller. He at her. They modified each other by their looking. Something almost angelic danced on the abrasive surfaces of his face. She carried her excitement lightly, the way a hunter carries a loaded shotgun over a fence. Warm chemical yokes burst in their throats. Ziller had the stink of Pan about him. Amanda heard the phone ring in her womb. In the magnetized space between them, they flew their thoughts like kites. At last he reached out for her. She took his hand. As they disappeared far down the riverbank, the ringmaster and the Apache sat stunned, in the kind of vacuum that forms in the immediate wake of an historic turn."

--Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Nude Interrogation, Yusef Komunyakaa, 1998.



Did you kill anyone over there? Angelica shifts her gaze from the Janis Joplin poster to the Jimi Hendrix, lifting the pale muslin blouse over her head. The blacklight deepens the blues when the needle drops into the first groove of "All Along the Watchtower." I don't want to look at the floor. Did you kill anyone? Did you dig a hole, crawl inside, and wait for your target? Her miniskirt drops into a rainbow at her feet. Sandalwood incense hangs a slow comet of perfume over the room. I shake my head. She unhooks her bra and flings it against a bookcase made of plywood and cinderblocks. Did you use an M-16, a hand-grenade, a bayonet, or your own two strong hands, both thumbs pressed against that little bird in the throat? She stands with her left thumb hooked into the elastic of her sky-blue panties. When she flicks off the blacklight, snowy hills rush up to the windows. Did you kill anyone over there? Are you right-handed or left-handed? Did you drop your gun afterwards? Did you kneel beside the corpse and turn it over? She's nude against the falling snow. Yes. The record spins like a bull's-eye on the far wall of Xanadu. Yes, I say. I was scared of the silence. The night was too big. And afterwards, I couldn't stop looking up at the sky.