MR. CRUNCHY

(part two)

This dance you do, what do you call it?

I call it the Caustic Two-Step,
I call it the Tango of False Intimates.
And let’s play a game:
You’re the forest, I’m the defoliant,
this world a ballroom of asphalt.
I am not still, dumb in the sway
of static’s ebb and pull, I am not
spindling out to match the galaxy’s black-sun demise---I am dancing!

These rooftops, they are not still.
They’re leaping; black-gapped jaws lapping up the sky’s oblivion.
And these leaves, scattered in the streets like the toilet paper of dead kings,
they are dancing, too!
These muddled street lights make islands of vacancy for us to belly-leap and frollicate
endlessly through, without any thought at all.
Whatever carries us, whatever moves us---

Dance the Bodily Holiday!
Dance the Contusion’s Delight!
My skull on a blind date with the Titanic—
I’m about to crack, I’m about to go down
drowning with champagne in hand…