Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Other Couples Are Foreign Countries

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:

wander stark-naked 
into the wilderness,
go full native 
with the indigenous,
sacrifice 
to their heathen gods,
take up arms 
against their oppressors,
paint your flesh with 
the blood
of their enemies.

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

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