Sensory Exultation
Sean Farragher

"The world only goes round by misunderstanding." - Charles Baudelaire

In our world without mass, light has dark formidable scales
made of rust, debris and the sacrifice of the end of space --
solar illumination tastes, smells somewhat dark there,
like burnt coffee beans roasted on a spit with human
eyes as condiments to the magical, invisible spirits
resting in the time zero puddles that populate rows
of thin narrow houses created for horror movies
where the blood, invisible, clings to emptiness
and you suffer sensory deprivation.

In that marginal vision what we know can be
more honest than what we pretend to believe.

We become the blank wall. And when we burst open
sulfur springs bubble noxious gas and your hands
wonder what if I were blind, deaf, without smell,
wild flowers arranged as vulvas would be invisible
Not even Georgia O’Keeffe could reason sight.


2. Carol, Nick and Sean

Once upon a time, Nick, a former Jazz great,
who made his living working the subway
stepped out into the dark one sunny day.

He said. “It was like black feathers covered my vision.”

Carol, my assistant, who loved poetry, cared for him.
She read to him Muhammad Speaks and dirty books.

He asked how she tasted. I told him she was a natural
didn’t drink, was a virgin until recently.

“You dog,” he replied. Then his body language
changed and he added "now, stop this bullshit
and, man, stop bragging, how does she TASTE.”

I asked Nick how he knew Carol and I were lovers.
He said I could smell the sex on you, and when she
let me put my elbow into her breasts while we walked
or kissed me with her tongue good night, and then
would crawl under the covers, and I could breathe,
feel where you had fucked her, I was amazed
how it all came back. I saw every woman I knew
and there were many, and Carol purred, and I felt
as if she was my daughter, and I could not touch
until she made it plain what she wanted and took it.

“Man, how you could give so much? “I heard you had
told her to take care of Nick. The old ladies here
were jealous when I couldn’t tend them –“

“I told her that you were an extraordinary
human being capable of sensory exultation.”

“When she came back to my bed and hugged
me I smelled and tasted you and loved it.”

3.
Carol became a Doctor married some man
and I am certain Nick will be a perfect sensual
moment, more intimacy that life usually allows.
I wish I had been a woman that day.

Nick and Carol smelled of the subliminal universe.
Of course, that is what I think now, looking back
thirty years ago when the air was easy on the lungs.




END
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