A Performance to Undo

by Ellen Redbird

Hat sees hatself as a he.  Flushed with last night’s drink, hat turns on a burned-out charm to shake uns hand.  Un sees hat as trouble.  Un puts hat to uns back mind because hat already swims uns pulse—the dog paddle, panting pink tongue and wet hair.

One, go down the manhole.  Entire quilts of it tossed.

Hat knows hatself as one of the curly squirrels—quick, unpredictable, athletic.  Stinks of cautious dirt stance.  A thief on the high wire. Sniffs furiously up a tree length.  Gnaws at patience.  Naked to a cat’s stare and plays it up in a beady glimmer.  Stupid was a clever aesthetic. Squirrel rhymes with girl in the blue bulge eye overslept and smudged in a dream of raw chicken in soot, beheaded card players, wings suspended by strings, perfect sisters.

Two, twist yourself as accorded.

Holy mothers and mantras.  Meditation.  Then sings off-key to little man music.  Bare ass baseball buddies hoot to school beats.  Drunken show-off nostalgia pit.  Hard-ons shrivel under the pressure of mis-adoration. Little kid curled up in a false halo alternately disproves itself in sparks of inattentive compassion.

Three, drawer shut.  Your vocal cue.

Hats golden-haired lady longing is a light before turned on.  An impossibility as hat cuddles the more possible and passable un for the moment.  Skin to skin heated but kept undercover.  When they sleep, hat dreams of dying.  The long plunge of an elevator through night-shaft.  After an ascent hat had barely noticed.

Four, say which corner conflict rattled.

“Ridiculous, ridiculous, infuriating,” un thinks.  Un knows not to want hat the way un does.  Hat knows not to think of wanting or un wanting.  Hat is apart.  Will advance but not be taken.  Will woo but not accept.  Never out of a longing past the fantastic immediate puppet jab.  A dodger and distracter.  “A selfish manipulative bastard,” un admits.  And hat asks for hugs un can’t withhold.

Five, that is what all of it flashed will motion.

Bare or in boots.  Red woolen long-john jammies.  Un massages hats feet and thanks hat for it.  Hat says yes to double bed and body.  No to any merge. No kiss to sacrifice hats spiritual height.  Never a stone in grip, in stomach, the way un knows eye-to-eye.

Six, you disallow a pomegranate.

Sometimes un careens into play.  Damned admiration hat reels in.  A disposable kite iron.  Un knows of girls hat makes chase hat.  Un speaks smooth counter tops of jealousies, claims full clam for unrequited avalanche.  Sips tea to the dregs when hat will bus a saucer.  Bike off to bars after hug.  Hugs while hat averts eyes to some alluring empty in the street—the next place hats presence makes semi-real and easily exchanged for the space after.  A three-second fish memory wiggles over fathom, to up heave heavily, to sometimes be sounded—maybe even sung again in the teeth, in the chest prick.

Seven, clip out your pose.  Fake a one page flip book.

Hat asks if un recently saw a dead squirrel.  It could be used in hats installation of raw chickens around a campfire halloween bizarre.  But does without.

Eight, the he and she left you stranded as they were invented.

Once in a while un sees unself as a she.  But mostly un sees a she in hat and a he that eludes them both.  Un queers the cocoon.  Hat can run in any direction, and it will be the same un.  Hat is uns choice un didn’t choose. Or uns illegitimate satellite falls to be hats nucleus aflame and unpinpointable.  A snake you only see in afterimage.  As a tiger un will strike and devour hat if only uns sure of slithering out of earshot.  A skin discarded resembles broken.  Dagger in the flank most gloried is a foul portal.  The only un kind.

Nine, your gestures were made zeros ago.