Exquisite Corpse (Matthew John Conley & Robert Masterson)

phallic phallicle follicle

pressing in through the window

there is no question, no negotiation.

There is only a compromise between

legs between legs a compromise between legs

of compromise compromise of promise

promise this because it is an honest request

my baby my baby my baby my soft reverse option

opening up wide in the chair

beneath, poised

and gasping, I wonder why

I am in this position

bound to immobility

grasped as much by it as by anyone here

or not here; it is practically the same thing

because we have been loving each other

because we have been pinning each other

down teeth to throat on the river

which is bending this way and that way

some kind of ox-bow reference to our literary past

splitting open the brain

and watching the knob burst

a fungus, a spoor

that we have found when we walked through the heavy,

darkening forest

hair growing

all along the base of the trees and lips of melon earth

so fragrant like the way we exit

smooth and silent, you know, like the way we steal

children from the forest and turn them

into surface under wheels

like the ones, the wheels that rolled over me

at the Big Daddy Tractor Pull for us.