from INTERRUPTIONS IN LATITUDE Gareth Lee

*

We were talking like that and we were
out of place, my voice
retarded by the ambience. And distance:

no yard but ships, flotillas going
blinking.
Both of us tangential, still

finding our voices. Or I should,
as you say,
speak for myself.

Now, as for my food, I say, let me finish,
let me speak. As for my food,
this sharp Mediterranean leaf
cluster and a filet from work.

I confess I’ve sucked on many tern-tits
dreaming and you flutter what
you can as if you’d rather wing past
this. Have I, eccentric, confess,

sunk the lake between us?

In this way we establish my sometimes
speechlessness,
sometimes unbounded narrative,
such symptomatic. It is clear

you are water, a lovely liquid
surge. I am opaque, I know,
irreconcilably woven. My deeds
in warp, my longing in weft.

*

I like the song when the rain starts to flop.

Our bodies love the wallow that sucks them.

Someone announced, where it sticks it
is trouble; where it is trouble

it can trespass. My nose runny

like a politician’s mouth. Your stockings

a wet primordial. We tend to slip
that way, to ruin our clothes, our

hair, our relief. And if I were to describe

to a friend this rained-out cookout

set in a once described “subdued and
monochrome” New Jersey marshland,

a friend wouldn’t believe. So much

for my gravitas, sublime and derelict.

So much for friendly relief. Wallowing we
are, I oink for a voice to be believed.

*

Enough about voices. Now about moans. The man in the video reduces
himself to himself minus the clothes. As a consequence, I see his
underthings, the extent of his influence, and most critically, the
instrument

suggesting his marketable acclaim. Pleased to assist the woman with
her elsewheres, he presents his tongue like a theme. Turn over, he
requests. As an actor, he performs clinically, referencing products

on display. And how does she react? She subverts all predictions and
refuses the man’s request. You turn over, she says. As an actor, she
may have depth, but her legs are propped up like windows. You are not

an actor. But you enter the room and, shocked, refer me to the wall.
Shamefacedly, I gather. Moments later, I find perspective. I skim our
letters. Some crisp, some emotive of that

light along you once, which was chopped up by the blinds. Remember?
Entering the hotel room then I zipped quickly over you, the traffic
outside resorting to a cacophonic suit around us. We hardly
complained. Since then

your complexion has deepened. Since then, I have received no acclaim.