Exquisite Corpse - Issue 3
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Fragile Handle with Care
by Robert Viscusi

 

The airplane seat is a soft bottle full of hot water from the Gulf of       Mexico
And it brings people to amazing realizations draped in chrome
Gleaming under the gardenias. Don't forget the backside itself
Which is important in navigation as it is in other projects requiring       maneuvers.
In a Tampa restaurant they show a famous painting of Fidel Castro smoking a cigar       
      with his ass. These parts are impermanent.
I used to wear armor but it chafed and made a lot of noise when I was walking.

Jennifer Lopez has a magnificent way of showing her ass.
It is part of dancing and singing and having a boyfriend with fifty       million dollars and an automatic pistol.   
They interviewed the woman who irons her hair.
"I say no, Jennifer. Say no."
Each ironing costs five hundred dollars at the salon and a thousand       dollars at home.
Jennifer's boyfriend sends her fat marijuana cigars in a silver box with her ass on
      the cover.
It is hammered in raised silver so you can feel its curves and slide your finger down
      the shiny crack.

"Jennifer, that man is trouble. Don't stay with that man," her mother       says.
Her mother's best friend puts six spoons of sugar in the coffee until it is thick as
      butterscotch.
"What, you don't like to have everything? Stay with him and you will have nothing."
The coffee table is covered with newspapers showing her, him, him and her, the
      Ford Navigator.
There is a picture of Jennifer as Selena with a complicated hairdo involving spitcurls.
"Save Your Ass," the headline reads.

Puff Daddy wearing a straw boater at the polo club in East Hampton is on the
      opposite page.
Can he sit a horse? It doesn't say.
The nineteen year old shot somebody for throwing a fistful of money       at Puffy.
No dissing the dollar. There is a Puffy Combs nobody knows.
He is sitting on the balls of his ass. He has his face in his hands.
The lawyer has come. Now it is time to go home.
"Mister Combs," says the sergeant, "here are your platinum chains."

They say she gave him back his ring. The room fills up with Cubans smoking the
      marijuana cigars.
"Hermana," they sing, "dulce es la noche."
"Mrs. Lopez, your daughter has been cleared of all wrongdoing."
"Put her silver dress in the closet and buy her a pair of flannel pajamas," says the
      neighbor.
Jennifer dreams of a gun falling out of an elephant's ass and clattering to the
      ground.
The neighbor says to Mrs. Lopez, "Thats all right. Stick it under your       dress."
Jesus, Jennifer says to herself in the dream, this is just like the       Bronx.

 

 

Books by Robert Viscusi available at Amazon.com (click on title for reviews and ordering information):

Astoria, A Novel
An Oration upon the Most Recent Death of Christopher Columbus
Max Beerbohm, or the Dandy Dante: Rereading with Mirrors

http://www.iawa.net

rviscusi@brooklyn.cuny.edu

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