Nude Descending an Empire

Suits of Men

26 Suits of Men At 2 A.M., a plane. At 2:15, another. At 3 A.M. What if we all were jumping skydiving at night in our sleep of green bottles thrown out of our duvets and covers by men in gorilla suits, or gorillas dressed in suits of men? Wouldn’t the cities then aglow with the burning marrow of the earth be beautiful, so beautiful some of us would forget to pull the cord. And the ads the gorilla men played for us on the movie screen of the earth’s face as we fell wouldn’t they too be beautiful? Commercials for skydiving at night for better parachutes, for rip cord training classes to refine and perfect our timing, for outfits that would make us sexier in the darkness as we fell and fancy watches that would lift our arms at the precise moment to pull the cord of our retirement, commercials that played, sensually, over each other’s skin for portable music players so we wouldn’t hear the sound of our falling through space or the murmuring ahhs and cries of terror of our fellow fallers. Ads for modular screens like individual pan pizzas in front of each face so we wouldn’t have to see each other or reach out to hold one another as we plummeted through the saffron-reamed darkness, as we lay in bed falling 27 into a nightmare, saying I am only sleeping, I’m only sleeping as the earth leapt up toward us, gigantic, becoming our body, as the earth burned. ...