Asylum
All I know is what I’ve read, and I’ve read about secret shelters for political fugitives in the middle of deserts or on a cliff somewhere. The man with a toothbrush mustache, the sort of person who spits when talking, was seen carrying what looked like the limp body of a dead woman. If it’s Thursday, the woman, now recovered, is on the phone saying, “F as in Frank.” But, if it’s any other day, she uses one hand to splay her sex. Having started out early, I’m nearly there, with the sun roof open and my short-brimmed straw fedora on, and the trees that zoom past on either side of the road miraculously flowering.
Breathing In
The machine is a tube with rotating lights. I’m lying on my back inside it, pants down around my ankles. Even if I could find a pretty accomplice to escape over the border with me, the border has probably already been unpinned, repositioned, and pinned again. The technician wears a Joan of Arc haircut. She says, “Just do what the machine says.” The machine says, “Breathe in and hold your breath.” There’s a menacing buzz, followed by a burst of white light, and then the machine says, “Breathe.” I have the same questions everyone else must have. Can funeral expenses be claimed on taxes? Is this real? How do they say “fellatio” in French?
Lost in Candy Land
1
As soon as we enter, refugees begin creeping in at the corners. Faces wobble in and out of focus. One man looks old enough to have been a Nazi death camp guard. I think about telling her and then don’t. In a place like this, building itself brick by brick around us, no one mentions all the many colors of darkness or what happens to intellectuals and artists in the event of defeat. The refugees are tearing the numbers off houses. I pull my shirt up around my ears, but still hear gunshots. She fades into rain. Call me, please, when the birds come home.
2
Such buildings as survived the quake lean sideways. It can be hard for newcomers to adjust. They arrive throughout the week, sometimes alone, more often in pairs and small groups. If they keep alert, they’re able to see tattooed nudes, bewildering experimental movies, and a complete collection of state flowers. This week there’s even a skinny old man with gigantic wings. Next week, who knows? Perhaps denazification of the sky.
As soon as we enter, refugees begin creeping in at the corners. Faces wobble in and out of focus. One man looks old enough to have been a Nazi death camp guard. I think about telling her and then don’t. In a place like this, building itself brick by brick around us, no one mentions all the many colors of darkness or what happens to intellectuals and artists in the event of defeat. The refugees are tearing the numbers off houses. I pull my shirt up around my ears, but still hear gunshots. She fades into rain. Call me, please, when the birds come home.
2
Such buildings as survived the quake lean sideways. It can be hard for newcomers to adjust. They arrive throughout the week, sometimes alone, more often in pairs and small groups. If they keep alert, they’re able to see tattooed nudes, bewildering experimental movies, and a complete collection of state flowers. This week there’s even a skinny old man with gigantic wings. Next week, who knows? Perhaps denazification of the sky.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY at New Paltz, is the author of several poetry collections, including most recently Beautiful Decay and The Cruel Radiance of What Is from Another New Calligraphy and Fugitive Pieces
