But only for 100 minutes. My George Clooney smile, my washboard abdomen taking hit after hit. Twilight love just another fang in the throat. Almost everything bleeds, where we wait among the lost luggage, the oozy work-out bag with a head or two. Yet everything happens here: a girl seeking her convict father, dragging two siblings behind her. This man’s dreams entering my head, as if sorrow were an absorbable paste. Or catch me in my wheelchair, moving a computer wand in my teeth, my arms useless and damp. Another IED. Or was that her last kiss, her last knife in the back? You think teen-age sex can survive low-salt French kisses? I hear the planes. The sports cars crashing into buildings. Get the chocolate, the good-for-you almonds, the black licorice from Australia. Take me to bed. Keep lying.
John Allman | The Insulated Bag Contents | Mudlark No. 48 (2012)