Most explicit--

the sense of trap



as a narrowing

cone one's got



stuck into and

any movement



forward simply

wedges once more--



but where

or quite when,



even with whom,

since now there is no one



quite with you--Quite? Quiet?

English expression: Quait?



Language of singular

impedance? A dance? An



involuntary gesture to

others not there? What's



wrong here? How

reach out to the



other side all

others live on as



now you see the

two doctors, behind



you, in mind's eye,

probe into your anus,



or ass, or bottom,

behind you, the roto-



rooter-like device

sees all up, concludes



"like a worn-out inner tube,"

"old," prose prolapsed, person's



problems won't do, must

cut into, cut out . . .



The world is a round but

diminishing ball, a spherical



ice cube, a dusty

joke, a fading,



faint echo of its

former self but remembers,



sometimes, its past, sees

friends, places, reflections,



talks to itself in a fond,

judgemental murmur,



alone at last.

I stood so close



to you I could have

reached out and



touched you just

as you turned



over and began to

snore not unattractively,



no, never less than

attractively, my love,



my love--but in this

curiously glowing dark, this



finite emptiness, you, you, you

are crucial, hear the



whimpering back of

the talk, the approaching



fears when I may

cease to be me, all



lost or rather lumped

here in a retrograded,



dislocating, imploding

self, a uselessness



talks, even if finally to no one,

talks and talks.