everything's fine
© 1996 Devon Koren

the world collapsed on a thursday evening
beneath the weight of telephone exchanges
and four feet of chardonnay snow...
no one answered.
she bartered her life
with quarters and oyster shells
and still the phone rang for hours for heaven for you.
she swore against the shadows of winged horses and sewer rats
she washed her face with waterguns and bubble syrup
and prays it's not the end of the world
(for holograms indeed exist)
the red king snores
"i thought your asphalt promises were different,"
she whispers,
"but i guess i was wrong
(i usually am, especially here
where all exits are stage left.)"
he stretches a year across her aura
and hopes it fits.
he paid so much for this moment
when lost angels braid trumpets across the sky.
the directors killed themselves this afternoon.
reporters flooded the place for hours.
she was sorry they had to miss it,
two and four locked away in the back room -
she was a secret on thursdays.
he wouldn't share her with anyone
(not even the circus.)
the word spun round to the scholars, and they,
of course,
denied her existence -
she defied logic and mardi gras masks.
they suffocated her sneakers and pierced her tongue
and hoped she lost her voice
(but she never did - not really -
pantomime was her favourite sport.)
the colours shift, clouds burst,
eyelids explode without reason
involving rhyme.
she measures his soul by the size of his feat.
two minutes before ultimate self-destruction
she kisses him goodnight.