at the bottom of a cheap
glass of whisky
It’s on.
Everybody loves It,
the critics, directors.
though the overdubbing is so bad
the Italian doesn’t match the lips
of the Italians
or anybody.

I feel good
on whisky
and it’s almost 2:30 in the a.m.
the night hot
So I sit dangled along the couch,
shirt unbuttoned
eyes dim,
dim.

42 minutes into it
comes a memory scene,
a kid fresh out of a bath
—wine bath in this case,
some ritual.
A woman carries him up to bed
and lays him down.

but he kicks.
he kicks and kicks and kicks.

something so Human
I nearly—no, I absolutely—forgot
being a kid, and being taken to bed
and bodily rejecting those
clean, crisp, white sheets
cool and heavenly,
as I’m being placed within them
by someone who loves me,
who looms above me
giant, and filled with love
for me.

kicking and kicking and laughing
at my benign rebellion in love.

I have no children of my own.
the only child I have
is myself,
and moments true
as fiction inside me.
Uncalculated neural clanks

but The Movie reminds me,
draws attention to the blessed we:
children before the fall.
(now, that’s a good movie)

I doubt the critics, directors
walk long
in these hallways of
collapsing thought,
and sure I could say
“Well, that’s something Fellini shuffled with
there—another fragment of art.”

but, what if he was
at the bottom of a cheap glass
of whisky
advancing on 2:30 in the a.m.
some night in 196—, and
simply trespassed
into one of those moments
of being human
that cannot be reasoned with?

a moment
determined to hold you hostage

until you give it a part
in your movie

and imagine yourself
a failure