mmcmxliv

don’t look down now

the map of his
necktie was of
the slowest,
most scenic,
almost circ-
uitious route
to hell with
the arc of
the styx
rising like
a blue rain-
bow, slightly
above the
angular tip
at the bottom
of the necktie
where the en-
trance to the
wailng and
the gnashing,
presumably,
just above the
dagger pointing
generally down-
ward at all times.
except that he had
tied it too long to
make the joke work.
which, to me, made
him immediately an
enticing jerk! so hell
was the blank space
between his thighs,
halfway down to his
knees from his pel-
vis, covering the
possibility of sex.
a prude in hell.
which, come to
think of it, seems
the only brand
of human that
would consider
this conceptual
boiling pot of
supposed eternal
misery uncomfort-
able in the least.
i imagined that
the squeaky-
shoed man in
funeral attire
(as he arrived 

at his first
day on the job;
so of course there
was the obvious
ogling that fol-
lowed him, nat-
urally, wherever
he clumsily and
aimlessly shuff-
led — in fits
and starts —
in that panicky
lost puppy dog
sort of way),
until some
party-pooper
showed him
to his desk in
an inappro-
priately gentle-
manlike manner.
all I could think
for the next few
weeks, yet only
once or twice
even passing
him in the hall-
ways of the glib
mundanity that
was the firm in
which I had
given a decade
(or so) was the
fantasy of run-
ing into him
someday
down THERE, in that
blank space
between the
middle of his
thighs. at
a tantalizing
way of being
driven to cra-
zy wailing in
the depths
of torment
that would be.