mmcmxliv

don’t look down now

the map of his
necktie was of
the slowest,
most scenic,
almost circ-
uitous 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
wailing 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 pelvis, 

and was shielding 

any 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 had

a funeral to attend
afterwards (this,

as he arrived 

at his first
day on the job;
so of course there
was the obvious
ogling that focl-
lowed him, nat-
urally, wherever
he clumsily and
aimlessly shuff-
led — in fits
and starts —
in that panicky
lost puppy dog
sort of way).
some party-

pooper inevit-

ably 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-
ning into him
someday down 

THERE, in that
blank space
between the
middle of his
thighs. and what

a tantalizing way
of being driven to 

crazy wailing in
the depths
of torment
that ever

was!