Handling

RENTED DARK

Even priapic bouts of sexual insanity
were no match against that winter
which dropped snow like cement
for cement’s sake. I came to think
of the weather as one of the leering
prison guards in a Women in Chains flick,
cast for his ability to produce
terrifyingly profuse body hair
and an admirably effortless mien of depravity.
Breakfast became bananas
and anthropomorphizing the storms
or thoughtfully vetoing
each other’s baroquely murderous impulses
or speaking to each other
in the flat affect of hostages
denouncing the moral and ethical whatever
of wherever. I dreamed
of understanding the sky
or touching your skin somewhere
beyond the bit of darkness we rented
on Olympic Street
without fearing we’d lose a thumb or toe
or dawdle into hypothermia
like lost children.
But that was when I dreamed
or slept at all. At night by light of the busted TV,
it was easy to see how
your face fell into sleep
and the rest of you followed
while each infomercial taught me
how to be wowed
by borrowed yachts
and stock photographs of Italian roadsters
and grimly orgasmic head-cases
who waved cancelled checks like stays of execution
while swilling soda water
with Pentecostal fury.
There were secret methods
and proven techniques
and when I closed my eyes
it sounded like birth control from an alternate dimension.
Supplies were low.
I had to order now
but I never did,
letting the night run out
like a special offer. Each one was.
While we made love
in a frozen world, operators stood by.