Nausea ransoms hour twelve

of the second flight. It wants the Dramamine

you refuse to have left in Melbourne.
In Planet of the Apes, the human discovers a talent

for invective still prodigious. Voices breach

my headphones, fingers knife
open the curtain—beautiful woman outside

the lavatory on her back; attendants ministering,

chorusing. Let’s pretend it’s
got nothing to do with blood sugar.

It’s next week, a bright Chicago
operating theatre—pass to the hidden

summit of uncaring that has awed me so long.
They sneak you business croissants. Mini

glass jars of Bonne Maman jam,

apricot. Would you rather something else,
my love? Something that holds your blood in

rogue octaves, rent

from the knife I fan? Or even wilder—
imagine the Australian government

didn’t permit me to leave, but to become human.
Charlton commandeers a horse and the surf

of catastrophe admits him, his manner
so swollen, he must be pretending

to pretend—he must have been ordered

to collapse the real into the act.