The Texture of His Body

His fragrance remained in the room when he left, and she picked up notes of Ambien and gin.

He turned into a dragon and blew smoke up his own ass: in this manner he floated away on convection currents over the next county into the tri-state area.  

She was disputatious.  She said she loved living in Bwana Johnny Time — the epoch of real mealy mouthed crying.  She said she had cramps.  The walls cared nothing of it.  She insisted and sang “Silent Night.”

He was tall with small joints and thick limbs.  His hair, tufted, was buffeted by the winds which were strong and cool this high in the atmosphere.  Before he blew smoke up his ass he washed windows without panes, and took pains in his assiduousness. 

(His father once digested him during a midday snack — and since then he felt as if he were covered in a film.)

 He felt slightly dirty and smelled worse.  

She was small with oblong limbs, and royally blonde-haired down to her quadriceps.  She analyzed the filigree in the milliner’s shears and chose “deckle” as the word of the day; and cellophane was “thee” fabric.  She smelled of Lithium and a life roughly lived.  She ate only the crusts.  

His name was Funty.  Her name was Frenta.  He blessed his goldfish.  She fried hers.  “Orange Poppers!” she proclaimed.  His favorite animal was the Pileated Woodpecker.  She peeled his navels.

She was obsessed with the texture of his body.  His tortured male narcissism despaired.  He happily fathered a wonderful future in Hades.  He wanted to write a skeezy text in the underworld.

“I think inside every song there are other songs.  But I also think, inside your voice, there are other voices that you have yet to discover and that’s kind of why you are here.”

—  Tom Waits