mmmdclxxix

My Plateau

“Where exactly is the peak from
which you take in the best view?”
asks my imaginary therapist (I
think?), turning it all back to me.

I take the microphone easily, bree
zily. It is the vacuum of August, 
month of holiday-less vacations,
the time of year that is most often

filled with the rising heat of the
seemingly endless void. When all
of the laziest canines, at least those
who don’t exist on hummingbird time,

sleep and occasionally daze from the
softest and coolest perches (where the
most delicate pooches spend hours
twisting and folding themselves just

so, into the most comfortable and
canonical luxurious nose-down poses).
“Oh,” I respond, my lips to the mike,
with only the slightest vocality in an

otherwise whisper, “I’m with them.”
I point individually to the several
lazing dogs that can be easily seen
(from where we sit or snooze or lang

uorously stroll), each almost content
edly stuck somewhere in their own
individual cycle of dozing and dazing.
“I’m caught up in the seemingly end

less dream of the chase.” And this
goes on. Whether I’m lying prone
in a literal slumber or sleepwalking
through a perverse meta daydream.

This must be true, I can hear myself
thinking, unable as I am to ever quite
determine my state of consciousness.
I’m as captured as I am enraptured,

as it were, within the fog’s embrace.
I strain in attempts to peer through
the thick of it, my semi-conscious
imagination, in search of a clearing.

Somewhere the fog opens, exposing
whoever I am to the glistening sun;
atop one of the several renowned hills
of this lost metropolis, perhaps. My

numb legs wobble around shakily 
seeking incline, any groundswell 

that might lift me and my heart 

(that’s body and soul) into the 

open arms of my love. For we have  

an appointment, I say to myself con

vincingly. He’s been awaiting my
arrival, and once I do, he’s as

happy to see me as I am happy
to see him, and I’m all caught up
in the magnificent squeeze, the
electrifying clarity, of his hug.

And then we are off. So down
we go, as gay as can be, for fair
September, and another spectacular
night on the town, our lost metropolis.