You Know You Want It
An airship picked me up a block from home.
I had stepped out in search of joy.
I’d say I was abducted, but I wasn’t:
two blondes in bikinis
leered down and invited me
to climb the rope ladder.
(I knew their flattery was insincere,
but any straight guy would have climbed.)
On the deck of the gondola, a gorilla,
no scarier than need be,
hooked me up to a treadmill;
the exercise, he growled, would do me good.
Other intellectuals
trudged beside me, likewise
endlessly checking their heart-rate and calorie output;
our efforts turned the propeller.
I knew they were intellectuals
because of the remarks that were
our rations: “They don’t whip us.
How insulting.” “The system makes us drive
ourselves.” “What do you mean by ‘us’?”
“The symbolism is outrageous!”
Meanwhile we watched
passengers and crew
doff skimpy clothing, screw,
feed grapes to each other, drink,
fight, snort, shoot up, collapse,
and vomit over the rail –
no doubt upon the uncomplaining poor
in the shadow of the gasbag.
We were off limits, for good or ill,
which made us feel secure and lonely.
(“But are they enjoying it?” “Are we?”
“’One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’”) –
When I was used up, I was let go,
having lost little weight;
we had covered perhaps a block.
The same girls waved ironically,
or perhaps their hands were dangling languidly.
The day lost, I went home
to find within myself
some principle of joy,
that omnipresent, rigged, compulsory lottery.
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