I was invited to a party and I came as somebody else

“Beyond every window is a line where the world starts”
     - Cole Swenson

1.
in the history
in the world or Europe
which I spelled w-i-n-d o
and another country and a habit
of looking silent
through concocted sheets

hung on tight ropes

suspended white outside
mountains in snow
mountains in snow
remember in mountains snow

a second ice

age

remember riding in cars how
going further out
     chemical equations
suspended over ravines
a red light (it was potassium nitrate)
glowed (magnesium catalyst)
going out
into the atlas a shaded borderland
container of light

2.
our feet
now
said
we
are
here
where meat
offered protection

3.
I am still drunk in a bathroom in Germany, in somebody’s house. The party rages outside. I have looked through the cabinets and used all the available towels. In the mirror: Hi, this is Adrian. A-who? Bless you. Thank you.

I reach a hand up his back, pull the cord and the mouth opens. The mouth opens to reveal teeth. I wait a second for the voice to find its place. There it is, fog on the mirror. “As his name is to a man.”

4.
First there is a horse pasture, then there is a horse pasture.

I roll up the window and see where I had
written my name backwards with the grease
of my fingers. They will see this tomorrow.



Blown Up In Trivia
George, this is or isn’t an assessment of character.
The quarterback fills his helmet with rock salt.
He is on his knees and thawing down into the surf.
He makes an archipelago of his head. We, Americans,
can make sense of the fiction. Because R isn’t
true, the gun rack is. I is a fiction
but only in relation to the football team. Go Eagles.
On the island the turf is green, or blue and yellow. But really,
it’s black so all the white guys can stand out.
Pulled through it, he gets a little stain on his lips.
It’s beautiful. It’s a mustache. At this point,
We, Americans, could pull the kill switch
but it’s full of sand. Strange placeholder,
this ‘it’ like a holster for that gun George
carries into the huddle. We gather around his story.
The sentences follow one another along a sentence trail.
It’s very cowboy. No metaphors approach from the outside.
George starts to swell. He looks a leader
huge in smell. His lip clutter
is admirable and charming. There is a trail of potty from his
wallow to the huddle. It is rutting talk. Go Eagles.
One sentence follows another
without any sentencings. In the end-zone,
a dog decomposes for seven points. We, Americans are
proud of this and ourselves. Political poetry
is shit. Now we are horny.
Justice done in a slow burn like rust or the color of it.
And the stain: a water on the brain but red. Comes the smell.
Now a statement, “America, are you ready for an orgasm?”
makes sense. Our finger pushes
coins into the ear hole of George’s helmet. About to pop –
the coins return to salt and sand. Physical time.
As such we are assimilated geologically into a character.

(Editor’s Note: “America, are you ready for an
orgasm?” was originally asked by Scott Abels.)

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