Ecstasy of the Rule

"A film is a real long thing, a compendium of emotions." 
	Arnold Kemp (*)

That battering ram
Love. blasted & occasional. 
Tonight is a warm tub
& the breeze is flavored moonlight mint. 
It's those hoary stems I pulled up this afternoon,
the fragrance hovers over my knuckles. 

We lay down for an old film: 
the one where the scientist is out back
sucking a crack pipe as the girl runs
down streets blowing like veils. 
...oh clingy Egypt, sputtering in reels...
And there I was, daughter of Frankenstein,
lying absolutely still under the moon platter,
one with her slab. 

All the scientist cared about
was puttering & private
complaints.
The daughter had stolen 
his basic measure of no resemblance:
a boy in a circular gown
pale beauties
silky, colors, ripples
his icicle skirt. 

You and I married in the ecstasy of theory, 
applying crime to our lives.
Crime. the ecstasy of the rule. 
We shared that disassociative trick 
of participating in our suffering without experiencing it.
Being an arrival
crawling into the tiniest heaven. 
it's what gets me off
now.


(*) as heard at the reading of Arnold Kemp and Bhanu Kapil Rider at 
New Langton Arts, 7/24/03, San Francisco

camille roy