041006

ANHEDONIA

II.

In a net of antigens, or else
creaky nocturnal versimilitudes
The device had 2 heavy,
slanting wooden sides,
 that invent balmy catchphrases
as dawn stalks, a double-dealer
perhaps 4 by 3 feet each,
pleasantly upholstered
 advancing the docket so religiously
toward whatever peak or trough.
with a thick, soft padding.
They were joined
 It fleets & wavers, the weather
& the signs.  What nudges
by hinges to a long, narrow
bottom board to create
 through the periphery, the smoke-
shaped veils of foundering perception,
a V-shaped, body-sized trough.
There was a complex control box
 the chorus of preceptors & receptors,
mercurial transmitters that flutter the dumb birds
at one end, with heavy-duty tubes
leading off to another device, in a closet.
 of singularity.  If you did not sing
I would not breathe, or be as
An industrial compressor,
the kind they use for filling tires.
 a mummy of glad rags & beatific
compromise.  Still still still
It exerts a firm but comfortable pressure
on the body, from the shoulders to knees.
 like an anatomical model.  A crystal
scion of the heretofore unrectified
Either a steady pressure or a variable one
or a pulsating one as you wish.
 schism.  The lens & the abacus
& the coursing membranes
that inscribe & erase.  That wrap
around a lowing rod.