House Sitting (a "B" movie) for Amelie Frank

1.
The Monahans are in Europe,
leaving les objets de papier,
two ancient dogs, and two
patrician cats in your care.

It's late, the Sylph is sleeping, and we

(employing laughter)

have achieved the specific gravity
of children - two human balloons
with our backs and feet
against the cottage cheese ceiling.

We bump and nuzzle,
compare notes on the feng shui
of the room, and fly into fits
at the cat's astonished stares.

Here:
hours, minutes, and boundaries
have become meaningless.

Here:
everything is waveform and wingbeat.
We speak the shibboleth,
we know the semiotic semaphore.

Here:


2.
Yours, sister-friend,
is the peculiar grace and tenderness
of freight trains.

The sheer tonage of sorrow
in your tow is so stupendous -
your grasp of night song
so non pareil.

I commend myself
for uncoupling you from these
however temporarily. And as for me
these visits

to a childhood neither of us had
leave me breathless
as the boy I never was and wanting

more.


3.
We put each other on (and off)
like costumes.
We visit empty envelopes,

or burn them and scatter the ashes.

We laugh,

until the isness of everything
sideswipes us again;
things take weight
and we fall to the floor -

cinematically.