You’re not cheap. That’s not it. The beauty secret of ancient Egypt parted some reeds
and found you in bulrushes. So it says on my pink pad, which first had said,
“While you were OUT” (such & such a thing occurred). The germs you haul to
this stylized Sirk FBI get carried away.
You’re no kid. It’s not that. I turn my back, maybe go to lunch, and another
contestant’s been kicked off Idol for domestic snafu. Do I cry? A message drifts
in, in MD handwriting—Oil of Olay, retardataire porn comeshot substitute,
same as old time Westerns used red cornstarch for blood. Do I even blink? Like
the crab-ridden mattress you were airing in the sun, I get carried away, carried
away. I get carried away.
Typewriters walk after dark from locked office suites. They get carried away, and of
your coracle I see no trace. I can not understand it. You’re no petty cat thief.
All this time I been barking up the wrong tree. I need a muzzle. If I did love
you in my master’s voice, in such denial I would see no sense.
While you were Out says Telephoned/ Was In/ Will Call Back/ See Operator/ Wants to
See You. Even the keyboard links its O’s and P’s. Even doctors use typists.
Even the best of us blow like Ray Davies. Even you, my dear, look for herpes,
find only heroes. This pink pad’s no stationery tool—it’s the house Jayne
Mansfield lived in.
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