another dream, another time, another place

being next in line, I walked to the “disposition” desk where

official papers were stamped, and was summarily put in charge of gravity.

I asked: “inside my house, or citywide”?

I was handed a pamphlet and required to stand beside the famous

“Backwards Man” of yesteryear illusionism.

(there's an intriguing photograph of the "backwards man"

taken by Diane Arbus in NYC in 1961, if you'd like to take a look.)

I asked a few pertinent questions of him, but he had nothing to say to me.

In time, my friend, long dead as all the dead seem to be, drifted across

the landscape. I cried-out in an effort to gain his attention to no avail.

In desperation I rolled a baseball in his direction, but it rolled on by

as it would through the gap between short and second without an attempt to snag it,

and he simply continued to drift the way a dead fish drifts with the current,

a rudderless, vulgar momentum without a clearly defined destination.

Bobby Petrillo, shortstop extraordinaire, soon disappeared into the distance.

–– yonder, I found a solitary bench in a solitary park and sat down

to read my pamphlet: “Being In Charge Of Gravity For Beginners”, but

I abandoned the pamphlet leaving it unopened and unread with only the bench

to keep it company. I didn’t want to be in charge of gravity.

––back at the desk for “disposition” I demanded another assignment,

one closer to "Reed's Road" beach where in 1952 the older, intriguing

“Bunny” DeCorpo adjusted the top of her one-piece bathing suit running the strap

over the slow, fleshy moon of her sun-drenched shoulder giving me a mesmerizing 

"do you like me?" wink in the process.

that was it. my first boner, or at least the first boner I remember as a functioning unit. 

––at the desk for "disposition" a new batch of official papers were stamped

and heatedly handed to me which read:

“don’t make this situation more difficult for yourself. you’re in charge of gravity”.