The Invitation
The honor of your presence
has been requested. By me.
I’m requesting that you
join me, temporarily,
bring your dishonor and
your favorite dessert
only if it is ice cream,
mint studded with
chocolate chips like
a green ermine coat
in a cup. I want to eat
a meal with you, food
as trickling hourglass,
course after course to make
the evening stretch. Time
is like spandex, it snaps
back and flattens with no
body in it, without your
body. Wear what you like,
your luckiest garment,
and I will be the one wearing
the mask of your face
tied on with curling ribbons.
I promise to take it off
once you have found me.
I am looking forward to
sharing oxygen with you.
One of your best, a great example of the way you show how togetherness makes things so much stranger, and how important that shared sense of strangeness really is.
ReplyDeleteThe poem is indescribably delicious, but it calls to my mind Flannery O'Connor's concept of the grotesque, how the actual clearly seen can be distorted because our perception includes the unseen to which it is connected, as a way of seeing it.
Sez O'Connor: "Prophecy is a matter of seeing near things with their extensions of meaning and thus of seeing far things close up. The prophet is a realist of distances, and it is this kind of realism that you find in the best modern instances of the grotesque.”
Which is a fancy way of saying there really isn't anything better than mint chocolate chip ice cream!
Some incredible images in this poem, Hannah, like "a green ermine coat in a cup". The juxtaposition of dishonor with a favorite dessert is startling, and the plays on appearance and body image and perceptions of how others play back to us who we are or seem to be are excellent.
ReplyDeleteI am laughing so hard...bring your dishonor!?!! sharing oxygen....this is extremely interesting ...you somehow reminded me of when G. Marx was dictating a letter to someone, and he said, Dear Gentlemen, question mark....I would like that you use this poem on the face of your invitation cards...wishing you a great week Hannah! x
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to picture how creepy it would be to attend a party with someone wearing the mask of my face. Shudder.
ReplyDelete