Buddy

I'm too hot to drive the tank tonight, honey
I'm too zippered to look away from the screen
cracked glass portal sucking us off
slurping side-scrollers and first persons and voodoo news
twitching and rolling our eyes back
the precum of coma
techno digital side-hustle kind of new world order
old world monkey kind of orgasm

Buddy runs loose in the hallway and the Indians chase him
shake his collar, call his name
Buddy

BUDDY!

life is a thunderstorm formed on the prairie
a Missouri grey clusterfuck staring downward angry
naked stranger in a hotel room
cold grey cusp of some god's wet wool beard
peep as I collapse this world around me
try to spin silver smoke into thread
coiling snake escaping through the open window
it does not seem to bother the bird nest
     or the eggs

but also maybe
maybe it's the slate soft feathery clutch
the cover of the Labia Olympus Mons Pubis
my lover the solar system
perhaps what I escaped to is greater than what I lost
when I left
and when she peers in - that covetous voyeur goddess
she will see
    I made the right choice

they call for him again
beyond the heavy bolted door of my monk's quarters
beyond the framed emergency escape plan diagram
Buddy!
     the Indians call

Buddy
Buddy,
have I made the right choice?

TA
10/25