print versionEDWARD MAYES
[Because the queue was far longer for the question]
Because the queue was far longer for the question
Session than the answer session, we switched
To the answer session. It was right to swerve,
Since who asks about the snap, crackle, and pop
Of the victim’s bones when the victors wear their claque
And clique and cloque so well, so archaically,
Like a roomful of harquebuses, someone yelling
Hark, Hark, someone who keeps a harlequin
On hand for the occasional melancholic night. But
If aquaria are for swimming in a contained
World and if on the basketball court of twelve-year-olds
The first sweat mixes with the preponderance of Aqua Velva
Circa 1960 and Brylcreem, then just listen, pronounce the t
In listen like often often is, and the booster shot slightly
Swells up under the skin, and if it weren’t for the buddy
System we would all be drowning, fumbling among
The blister packs for the right antidote, some bunker buster,
Some cost cutter, if cost needs cutting, or the shutting
Up, the silence we need to hear each contact lens adhere
To each eye, the slight suck or slurp or sliding sound,
Like moving a chair across the room to sit while looking
Out a certain window, or using the light to study
Dürer’s Melencolia, the 34 of the magic square or
The rhombohedral stone, as we sit neither sanguine nor
Phlegmatic nor choleric, but where we are, in a Brunelleschi’d
Perspective, objects in the mirror appearing smaller or larger.
Q
on the q.t.; q.i.d.: quater in die, four times a day; q.m.: quaque mane, every morning; q.p.: quantum placet, as much as you please; q.s.: quantum sufficit, as much as suffices; Quaalude, quiet interlude + Maalox; qui vive; quidnunc: busybody; quietus est: he is discharged; squabble; aquaria; aequorin: protein in jellyfish for bioluminescence; aquiver; bouquet, bunch; cloque, clique, claque; bunker buster; all rows add up to 34, as well as the corners and the four numbers in the center:
16 3 2 13
5 10 11 8
9 6 7 12
4 15 14 1
[In London, 1973, watching Ultimo Tango a Parigi]
[Because the queue was far longer for the question]
[To those of us who would rather be alive]
[The shutters close slowly in the camera]
[After we found the sack of tchotchkes in the garage]