Post Production: Orlando

When I was forty-one, forty-two,
I smiled, breathed out and went as you for Halloween
Miss Manners – of course – my black halo
shone with indignations, care, wet glue.

I like to construct as much as you.
Beautiful girl – though a decade too late, or too early
I know the feeling dear
20s face, old at twenty (wide eyes, quiet hair clamped curly)

I see it all. Did it hurt to be seen
thus, this pin-stuck you?
I can see you alive, in a Florida flat.
Playing chequers, beating other old Jews.

All very nice – king me and so on.
Dance steps shuffled out on the floor.
Do you sleep dear? I can't, not a wink
and the things I used to like I don't like any more.

But in the morning of all dead things
I meet you, sweet R, at 2,
I love it. I'll tell you that for free.
It's only to the dark-lit things I've managed to be true.

Re: I went to a Disney park many years back,
Wife, kid etc. The whole cast in tow.
Wifey hugged Mickey whilst I clicked and snapped
Orlando's hard sunshine gnawing my bones.

You see Mickey doesn't blink when you meet him.
And I was immune to his charms
And the bull-dyke sweating under his pelt
Held my giggling wife in dead arms.

You should have done Disney - with your high sweet voice, you'd have been a natural mom, sweet gingham, oh now you two! now you two!

--- Could you hold it there, twenty years, until these things were true?

Note:
You simply cannot marry him (stop)

It's not that I don't love you
It's that it's not her
it's you
that got in the way.
Accents.
(are risible throughout) I’m sorry.
Orlando's where I live, sweetheart, sweet R.
Orlando.....is my holiday.

The hat was lacquer
The mouse wore lacquer
And there with these things is the heart of the matter
Miss Manners is thinkin' of you
And the pain you will endure.

And how terrible to be betrayed
by a caprice of skin,
of bone.

It is not my face you
know. You have always known.
Womb with a view (!)
Straight down to the soul
Though Orlando had time to grow into her role.

How terrible to be betrayed by a slip of heart, of time, of bone.
No. Let us come together to mourn
the life we share, sweet R. In the dark
O, how glorious it is
To be reborn.