THE MENAGERIE

You were nervous on that day.
I could hear, or at least I imagined I could hear, you
being made up by the hair and make up stylist.

I was down stairs in our New Orleans honeymoon suite
gathering final sins, secrets, paper work, and holding your ring
in my fingers, feeling the smooth, flawless contours

of a life’s worth of montages and coffins; conflicts
and a rotating carousel of hybrid animals that would
have made Jung proud. Condensation he called it.

Look at that horse’s head with that elephant’s body.
Now what in the hell is it going to do with that musculature?
How will it take a shit or find someone to love it?

And that dragon slash lion slash crow.
That’s a real mess. And people believe in God.
I love that punch line. Well you have to have faith, ya know.

And what child is going to want to sit
On that Tyrannosaurus with the chimpanzee arms
and goat’s legs? That’s just down right scary.

But hey, that’s New Orleans for ya and that’s where we decided
to do it. And it was grandeur incarnate
from the white candles in glass cylinders

from the older, yet pretty female justice of the peace
or whatever the fuck she’s called. From the chairs wrapped
in white linen and those brown bows you loved

from the wedding the day before. I negotiated with the mother
of that bride, because I knew those chair tie backs would make you happy;
that Mise-en-scène set the stage as if Fellini himself were in town.

You adored the way I strong armed the coordinator, muscled the musicians,
bartered with the bartender, charmed the florist, and discounted
the rooms for your gentle mother and your gruff, caring father.

I waited at the end of it all – the suited and dressed guests
the setting orange sun, the aroma of Café Du Mond in the air,
the insane, drooling, hydra slithering and lurking under seats.

Who invited him and what side of the family is he on?

All of the animals where there, myself included
and when I saw you make the turn, seeing you for the first time –
your painted face, gorgeous, enigmatic, beautiful.

Your body wrapped tightly in the fabrics of all of your hopes,
tears forming from your lids and then dripping to the white
plastic runway. I was in love.

Your father placed you in my arm. He trusted me to make you laugh,
to protect you, to keep those creatures at bay by tossing
chunks of bloody meat out the front door – continuously.

To keep them eating, gnawing, scraping at bones.
That was my job but I was terrible at it
and eventually they smelled us.

Clawed their way into our lives
Found us sleeping in bed
Silent as candlelight

More than happy to swallow us whole.

TRAFFIC

Gridlock. For miles.

Vehicles tight as bricks and mortar.

It’s summer. I’m sealed

In an air conditioned car.

Refrigerated.

Like meat. Like blood.

Like the cigarettes

Your mother taught you to keep fresh.

My car, our relationship

Moves a few centimeters. Stops. Waits.

All these strangers

Sit uncomfortably

Behind steering wheels

Fingers and palms grip hard.

We all peer through sunglasses

Then love bug splattered windshields.

I’m impatient.

I unbuckle the seatbelt.

Close my eyes.

Recall the floating I felt

When I was eight years old

And Kristin and Jennifer

Paid me a visit in my Long Island basement

To find me playing with Transformers.

That floating feeling

Women and falling asleep behind the wheel

Still give me.

I begin to lift from my seat.

Slowly, a sedative

Pushed through the throat of a syringe.

Through the roof as humidity

Clings to my skin with static accuracy.

Once free

I lay flat in the air, levitate

Through a time line of my life.

The first time I saw my words printed

On the pages of an aftermath.

The first time images rotated

With the human rhythm

Of a zoetrope.

The first time I slid inside a woman

And then left her on the carpet.

The first time my brain sloshed around

A drunken roller coaster.

The first time I muttered

“I love you” in New York City

The first time I amputated

Mother and father from my life.

It’s all out of order.

I float over the traffic

Under the bridges

Over asphalt and fault lines

Over neighborhoods and power lines.

Eventually I reach my street.

Carlos is mowing his lawn.

Kelvin is cleaning his garage.

Steven is walking his rambunctious brown dog.

They each wave at me.

Apparently, I’ve done this before.

I float through the front door

Over the hard wood floor we picked together

Over the living room furniture

Where you flipped through tabloids.

Over the steam cleaned carpet

Where your children used to smash cars together.

Through the bedroom door

To rest quietly on the unmade bed.

Next to the night stand

That holds all of our framed pictures

In black wooden drawers.