Behind the bridge of the human nose
one often strikes the eerie pose
of Ferdinand Flocon, nineteenth century pen-
pusher, who rendered the entire civil code of his country
into an epic poem. How interesting and helpful
his contemporaries were, who now knows?
On Flocon we have enough data to say
tokens of alarm, tidbits.
I offer you a psychic spanking:
be a friend or a loved one or a hero who has died,
see if I care. I’ve been forced to resort to some rough stuff –
lipstick and eyeshadow,
you and your evil Siamese twin –
and pray that in coming weeks
you’ll be exposed as stressful fantasies
in piranha-infested tributaries
in 100-degree heat.
Meanwhile, simply repeat after me
the supposed main feature of the human face – you
may decide to put a helmet on it, or a name to wave
happily at passing strangers. They’ll taunt you for its various
defects, but their taunts will trigger a homing device
in the gorgeous monarch or white admiral
bursting from its cocoon
into this weird miracle of days ahead –
deep-sea diving, coalmining, the forty-nine
elevated levels of torment, Freud,
Persephone, Pluto.