I Smell Esther Williams

PROSE POEM / A JOKE FOR GINGER

The exposition’s lights are pale and diffuse through the condensation, the trolley cables and pylons are lightly dusted with snow outside the big shed, downtown St. Louis, the mechanical chicken scuttles off the cutting board and the thread of gold at her ankle throws light off its turning key. The snowy streets record the trails of unnaturally bulky particles that splinter and fuse in millionths of seconds though, elsewhere, and more indigenous to this version, his prints lead to the door of a household, that he opens. “Ooooooh,” she shivers, “this earth shuttle is lonely.” “Pass over that bottle of Sniggering Walter,” he says, “Daddy’s home.” Mental months spire into the air and swerve as if pulled by the oven fan. It’s hard to forget this scene that plays and replays so often. He goes and sits at the piano and she follows and stands behind him with her arms around his neck. And they sway together as he plays. Dinner burns, giving off a warm ocher glow. In one version the woman is someone I know. In another version their bodies look like decoupage-covered wood. And although in some versions the piano is electric and they’re literally bottomless, the only one with a provocative conclusion is the version in which they affiliate themselves with a community theater’s production of Special Yearnings which ends with the fiery crash of a red convertible that in turn detonates a domino chain of underground nuclear reactors from St. Louis to Worcester, Mass. And in this version, I’m visiting someone in Worcester and I’m too blasted to make love, so I find a station I like on the radio and go lie on the rug. Get it, Ginger? Too blasted.