Chapter 7
Latched on Locations
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| 2 husbands at work in New York |
NARRATOR
While they work
the Husbands have little smiles
because they know that they
really aren’t doing anything!
They have little grins in their offices
around the numbers; while they are
handling the numbers.
BIGGY
We’re around numbers all day
and up on our graph paper they go;
yet, we are accomplishing nothing, zero?
SMALLY sneering at numbers on the charts,
Because they are fooling around!
NARRATOR
How do the Husbands get out of this?
What is the force that removes them from it?
What is their salvation?
The Two Husbands stand back
and adjust their ties or robes
to consider the ill-fated totality
of their own private numbers
bunching together there on board,
around their desk
or over their heads
latched to the graph chart,
in the crisscross - a perilous net!
SMALLY
Our numbers are moving in there,
finding a place, square, next to each other.
BIGGY
They’re stiff floating
o’er our spacious square-ribbed skeleton!
SMALLY
They are crowding in
becoming latched - latched on locations.
BIGGY
And then, they’re popping out
like corn kernels puffed up -
not to eat and doing no good!
SMALLY
They’re bouncing on our
tables and desks
disturbing papers,
ruffling their edges
in a sudden breeze.
BIGGY
And we’re losing
our reference place there.
SMALLY
Yes. The pages are turning over
and our careful, abstemious figures
are reversed and totaled upside-down;
their numbers lost -
fallen out
like peas out of a grate.
BIGGY
Like a rock collection of precious minerals
poured upside-down.
SMALLY
Or, like marbles rolling all over.
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| 2 husbands experimenting |
BIGGY
And, no, we can’t chase them.
It looks like they stand up
by themselves in a jumble
and fantasize on the table.
SMALLY
They’re fantasies collecting together
but meaning nothing. Especially, when
they unmentionably tackle each other
and end up in a heap.
BIGGY
Orgiastically!
SMALLY
But meaning nothing.
BIGGY
Just stuck on to their own forms -
blackened outlines stiffened forever
like magnets. And this is our work, our job.
And it sucks!
SMALLY
So, we’re out on a limb here,
so to speak.
BIGGY
We’re at loose ends without a job.
SMALLY
Not even contemplating a ‘meaning’ to it.
BIGGY
Or, with them, the numbers,
gone all haywire crazy!
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| Out of the Numbers Basket and the Super Egg Timer |
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