Pillow Talk

Through the fishbowl visor
the motel room looks flatter, wider.
From the hat stand
this glass eye stares '
the salesman and the female astronaut
lain out on the queen size
twin sarcophagi in bas-relief
piously upward gazing
at the slow churn
of the ceiling fan's bronzed fins.

She is going into space.

Her suit hangs in the corner
beneath her helmet,
a shrivelled golem;
it is waiting to eat her.

On the floor
by the teak wardrobe
his briefcase
is ajar.
Carpet samples
loll like furred tongues
from its silver-catched maw '
mint, mulberry, vermillion,
taupe, ivory, cocoa,
hyacinth, magma, more,
teal, avocado, more.

She breaths
and says
'After the Bang
comes the Big Crunch.
Space is a vacuum '
it needs me
like a junkie needs junk.'

And he breaths
and says
'I hear in space
your heart gets smaller.'

And she curls her lips
over her teeth
then says
'Do not be too sad
if I burn up.'

He says
'I seem lachrymose,
I know,
but I am capable of fierce joy.'

A pink neon scrawl flickers
in a nook of the helmet glass;
it matches the wing-beat
arrhythmia of moths
orbiting the room's one bulb.

And he clutches the L-Bomb
tight in his fist's clammy cave
thinking
I can do this.
I can go to war.
I've done it before.
I've done it before.