if it were up to me, this one would have space so public a place, so sensual
        if it were sessional, children would slide on their bellies on the waxed floor
        they help mop up too; if only city gates opened into such lotus ballrooms?

I hear the jangly dance shoes, the chapfallen who did come for a purpose
        but who leaves a ballroom like a home, as if it made you better?  
        if it were up to me, pink would be a snarlier goulash of red and white

unlike state flags, if it were my colour wheel; they know the betwixt and between
        “those are the opening lines of a poem,” he said; he has never punished me
        he would never call me expendable or leave me in canada or mexico or cuba

we are those two hefty palms like heaving fireworks; it’s up to me to bundle up
        but we never collide, we never collide; he sounds, homing-pigeon god on call
        and never indifferent like republics, like ministers, like the pedestrian

we are all paved into the pedestrian, after all, as naked feet, as lachrymal
        if it were me, bare attention, I would fall into charleston steps, head-banging
        man-child incandescent, my face flushed fuchsia; he drags me, all up to him

this ballroom too merengues more twists and turns, more hidden passages
        and distractions to say this is the way to do this, this is the truth to say to people
        about ways and truth; but I am a convict like malevich, his blue trapezia axial

we seem force-fed more if-onlys, finery like fresh produce, a disemboweled us
        we seem anxious as tassels, tulip ball gowns optical, illusory; we enjoy burlesque
        we are slapstick, over-spilling saucers, our tears welling, eyes swelling to blind

if it came down to it, we would still wear seventy coats to pad our secret shame
        if it were disfiguring, why do we cling to the red
        its superstructures coalesced?