Taken Somehow By Surprise

Danse Clewellia, or: Is There a Doctor in the House?

86 If when my wife is breaking plates and tile in the basement, as always going to so many pieces for her art, her mind’s eye already fastening on what, exactly, might become of this legion of the cracked and shattered when pressed into service unexpectedly together, and our pencil-wielding son is knee-deep by now in his overflowing Comic Book of Death, laughing in the face of the very idea, drawing his favorite conclusions: it’s either the dreaded high-tech plasma beam or that 100-ton weight no one ever sees coming out of the cartoon sky, and his pet mouse, Jolly—so named by his original, optimistic family that finally gave up and unloaded him here, where he’s much better known as Not-So-Jolly—is making pint-size plans for another bloodletting surprise the next time he’s sprung for his daily rodent constitutional, and the cat is rising above the fray before it actually happens, curling up completely in the bathroom sink, drinking all night from the dripping faucet, and yet surely I’m the one who’s somehow crazy just for thinking I really could use a cool splash of water right now, and I’m afraid the Moon isn’t even half-full yet above and beyond the summer ruckus of cicada-laden trees— Danse Clewellian, or: Is There a Doctor in the House? after WCW . . . way after 87 if I, overheated in my room upstairs, undress entirely as a last resort, grateful there’s no mirror I have to answer to, waving my THE GOVERNMENT IS LYING T-shirt about my head and singing softly to myself: “I am surrounded, surrounded, I was born to be surrounded, I am best so!” If I admire my Charlie the Tuna lampshade, Reddy Kilowatt barbeque apron, Bigfoot snow-globe, Dump-Nixon ashtray, Bettie Page plenty-of-action figure, all of them on display in their own naked, oddball glory— I’m no William Carlos Williams, but who shall say I am not the happy captive of my household? ...