1:43AM (A Quiet Eruption)

My face is broken; it can’t show emotion anymore. I didn’t smile enough, and I frowned for too long. Heresy and healing, a hermaphrodite of hate and love. A dark swamp, snake-rippled water, the black mud of Louisiana bayou, baying like a whore in heat. An escalation of energy, a semblance of the sweet sound of orgasm, the inadequacy slipping away, a silver ghost. Dans le restaurant, I spy, with a little cry, the God of Misery, and, at the bar, as we drink our beers, he says to me, “You’re sitting in Rimbaud’s seat.”