I flick past the suspension photos

to my shame, like Johnny Five
without the plea for “MORE INPUT!”
bundling the sight roughly from my head
only for it to push back through
like the contents of an overstuffed cupboard.
The image distills itself,
cropping the trees, the onlookers,
even the bulk of the apparatus,
boiling it down to the twin teepees of flesh
and the hooks, curved and dipping
below the surface like iron serpents. Hooks
snagging clawfuls of chest tissue
mocking the body mass
that hangs from its grip, that pulls
the skin tauter into mock-breasts,
that falls in love
so easily with gravity.