Issue 17 • Spring 2006 • Featured Writer • Poetry

Bi-Aquatic

Maureen Seaton and Neil de la Flor

The Red Curtain is attached to a guide rail this weekend.
The Red Curtain is pushed aside by a trembling man¹.
The Red Curtain is whisked up and flapping defiantly.
The Red Curtain is the backdrop for the altar and is just mo' better.
The Red Curtain is removed to reveal my knee highs.

Note 1: Keep in mind the Red Curtain is parted as a man, meaning it parts like a man parts his hair assuming he has hair and that he parts his hair, but also the 'Curtain' is a woman because we are blessed to be half of one, which can be considered favorite pet-like in escrow. The 'Curtain' should not, however, be equated to being a fish (not even a red snapper) or other aquatic flippers.

At 180° I am changed, however, neither replicate nor nebula. Seeing me thus you may raise up on both elbows and scream the length of the walkway. I don't know. At 1/8^th of my former self, I am not playing, and you, my puppet, reveal the familiar 20^th century drum roll and swim crooked as an eel.

The Red Curtain is behind to the left of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

They, the Internet, say New Jersey is a major supplier of ties and totes. I'm battling fabric suppliers, one especially sassy, name Lizbeth, New Jersey. She says to me, Red Curtain, you're heating up. She says: all in all, all 150 miles of me is a bad joke.

Revealed thusly: (See http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=new+jersey+&type=3_) Lizbeth, New Jersey is not immune to the gay and lesbian bicycle club, which is "open to cyclists of all persuasions who love to bike in the garden state". Also, New Jersey is taking in requests for this weeks special so send them into contact@dininginnj.com.

Choral music weeee: fah lu lah! lu lah lah lah.

Jersey is not blue * nor is Transylvania. Statewide, they are both as red as a clam in its death song.

How to locate clams: First you jump up and down on the sand to awaken the bipolar commies. When they let out their feeble bubbles of happiness (see "happy as...") scoop quickly and throw into bucket. The rest is a stonecrab's throw away from the back door to hell.

(Bringing Lizbeth up in a poem about you is a bear hunt. Once and for all: it's Lisbeth!)

Yes, but this Lizbeth is Lizbeth, not Lisbeth! Different human altogether, but similar in many respects to California's clam community leader, Dr. Slamup Dongh Yippiee.

If you can count to tree then that's good but the real treat comes when you book a room for four and stuff 12 into a small bed, twin size, and light little tea lights on the included bible and bust open the Evian for a wet n wild time, i.e. sleep. Thus: Dr. S.D.Y., formerly known as song song soup, will gently lower herself down, presumably rest her elbows on your bedside, and slightly sing the national anthem, "Red Curtain Cinema".

The clam is believed to practice self.
The clam is a bi.
The clam is much more sedate, like Lisbeth.
The clam is digging as fast as it can.
The clam is "clambaking" "I would have done the same for you."

http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=The+clam&type=1

Is it (a name) edible? Is it digested with its shell or fixed to the front wheel/whelk arch liners (cruise ships?). If you place the person we name Hector aka Song Song never Liz(s)beth on a small base filled with foam and hand him a monk parrot (there are nine magic ones three feet from my face right now!) will he still insist on cleaning its feathers to extinction?

Grilled uni?

Otherwise known as bi: See http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=bi&type=1.

Did you know the following?

Bi is a predictor of psychopathology
Bi is not optimized for fire
Bi is here
Bi is caused by external wind²

Note 2: In regards to wind, I'm not talking about wind wind but blowing like puff or pufffff or puuuuffffffff! You see, I see, the application of meteorology to Peter Pan (or the magic fairy) as molecularly well adjusted to bi, as well as neutrons such as marjoram, spaghetti, and lust, is stupendous and foxy. In other words, bi is more sophisticated today with a diverse mix of offerings, such as activism, award shows, and incoming edges (bi incoming edges I mean sword, knife, spork).

Watch the wind for red, The Red Curtain said. I'm de-parting my hair in pursuit of one talented hottie with a body!

Blowhard.

Trying to take care of strangers with slinkies is partisan.
Suffocating minks is furcate. Never a wink or a uni.

Bi is the mater.^∞

Note Infinity: A Rosary Made of Bowling Balls As Seen by Catholics from Outer Space.

Bi is replicated all over the world.
New Jersey is a superb place for wreck diving.
The clam is not looking into the mirror at your reflection.
The Red Curtain is anathema. (Don't look for this in the dust-free zone, Hector Metropolis.) I;;;'m spinning;;;

We've gone like that hurricane that went right over us when it wasn't supposed to and all those canes that were supposed to come never did but you knew and I knew about the boy (or the girl) who was too heavy to move.

Keep a Ziplock handy my friend, the Rosary is beaded with clam shells.

Maureen Seaton's latest collection is Venus Examines Her Breast (Carnegie Mellon University Press), winner of the Publishing Triangle's Audre Lorde Award. She is also the author of Little Ice Age; Furious Cooking, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize and a Lambda Literary Award; Fear of Subways, winner of the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize; and The Sea Among the Cupboards, winner of the Capricorn Award and the Society of Midland Authors Award. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review, New Republic, Bloom, and many other journals both on- and off-line. The recipient of an NEA fellowship and two Pushcart prizes, she is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Miami. Neil de la Flor's work has appeared or is expected in Indiana Review, Hotel Amerika, Admit2, Scene360, 42opus, and Lodestar Quarterly. He is the managing editor of Mangrove and lives in Miami, Florida.

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