The last thing I remember was Tray Table—locked in its fully upright
position at approximately thirty thousand feet, my ears madly popping
while some alpine-scented pentothal syrup seemed to pour off the I Pod
wires made a puddle in the aisle at my feet, where I may as well have kicked
over a candy cane-colored highball tumbler containing 151 rum mimosa for
the punter one seat over, and I was about to ask —“WHY WAS YOUR
CONCOCTION ON THE FLOOR? NOW MY POOR MACBOOK’S
SHORTED TO THE CORE, AND HOW AM I TO KNOW WHO I AM
ANYMORE?” —when an Air Marshall came stomping up front

and center in his syrup-sticky Doc Martins, I tell you this cat
was a dead ringer for Young Denzel, he ordered me to shuck
Earth shoes in coach class, held me at bay with Taser Ray Gun
and told me to start sucking my ice-blue cuticle toe jam like one
of those Popsicle tubes with tongue slit for the icy mush.

When I’d swallowed
up every last drop of it, the cabin lights got snuffed, together with the turbulence,
and bell tones from far eastern Fasten Seat Belt ringer signaled that I was starting
from scratch again—I mean, fuck me, my friends!— it’s like trying to cop a carton-per-week Ray Carver cigarette habit with naught but Icy Heat and nicotine patch, I didn’t know who I was, but sure enough no kind of freaking addict, meanwhile the next

frame found me in a toasty 007 Ski Chalet, I knelt before a blazing hearth, feeding
my subversive poems, passport and birth certificate—long origami kindling strips
of it!—to the starving flames, praying it would all come back to me, like starburst
cinder sarcomas on my lips, nips, ribs, peritoneum, buttocks and shriveled scrotal
sack to boot…

“WHAT ARE YOU INCINERATING?” squawked an adolescent chicken hawk
from the rafters, name of Sal, or maybe Hal, with dust ruffles for eyelashes and born
ready to set me straight about any Wiki thing in this world. “WHEREFORE FLOOR?” this creature said, “YOU’VE KNOCKED OVER MY BIG GULP CUP, THERE AIN’T ANY MORE, AND SQUARE ONE SO SYRUP-STICKY, JUST AS BEFORE!”…

So strange how
in the end, I must have been thrown clear,
to here, with whole-skin and re-bricked Mac book—paper thin!—all my stats,
they’re back, it’s all right there on Yahoo, my God those discussion thread
entries I’ll deny having said, I’ll deny it, like I said—but how should I say it
to you?... Maybe how it feels never ever necessarily like Shame, but moreover
all those nasty key words, coming around again and again now and forever
Up Linked — with my good name.