Indulgence

Marie Antoinette

It is hard not to think of Marie Antoinette
and how her head must miss her body so.
The image of her beautiful face forever trapped
in an exhalation, blood in the stump of her neck,

some might’ve gotten to her hair
and everyone screaming and shouting
at the death of one so vain and so careless.
I’ll think of November 13, 2000 where you’ve

inscribed on a photocopied book of Lucie
Brock-Broido: “how we encounter books so
powerful and beautiful, you feel the need
to share it to those who would understand

at once.” Somewhere between cups of coffee
and conversations rudely interrupted by text
messaging: you knew I would understand.
Somehow it did not matter that you did not know

I would use the word “purchase” correctly
at eight years old, clutching a cassette tape
in my tiny hands – uttering such large words.
As my sister would say – “He never bought anything

in his life – he purchased everything he owns.”
Now I look at my copy of “A Hunger” and wonder
where my book called “Lassitudes” must have disappeared
to. Someone else is discovering how the whole weight

of a black hole can somehow be placed in the single
point of a pin. Its head. If only things were really so
compact and would not explode in the instance of an
epiphany. But nowadays you need cigarettes for that

and shades and really be capable of understanding
trance music. It only took me one moment to understand
it – imbibing (at the least) 4 years of chemical
experimentation. And my body grows thin and weak

and I hunger less and understand more and more,
why people smile and drink water and smoke and chew
gum and dance: really dance. And my sister tells me
I’m no longer that eight year old child, that I am now

so lost and confused and too happy. All of that
happiness can be compacted into a tiny pink pill
and somehow, its powerful and beautiful experience
must be shared, but this time: so it can be understood –

so everything can be understood. And I think of my
missing book and not even remembering what “Lassitudes”
means and wondering if I really understand
when she said: “Let them just eat… cake.”

posted by wanggo @ 1:25 AM