You can visit them
like one visits Indonesia
or South Africa
or Brazil,
but you are a tourist
encountering
the Chamber-of-Commerce
production
of a relationship,
the Ministry of Propoganda's
redacted adaptation.
You must venture beyond
the guarded perimeter
to experience
the primal truths
of romantic coupling:
against their oppressors,
All are born savage.
The barbarian lurks beneath
a veneer of civility.
In the bedroom,
in the bathroom,
we cannot escape our carnal nature.
Some conceal it more than others,
many from themselves.
This is especially the custom
of social media mavens
who broadcast a tinsel parade
through the capital square
while their union rots
at its foundation.
Each of us is on all fours
with a stranger,
toiling
for glimpses of the transcendent,
seizing them,
at best, enough
to prolong the alliance.
There is nothing to envy
but those magnificent moments
consummated
in your homeland.
**First published in Barbar Literary Magazine
