Enemies of Enormity

demies of Enormity David Riyard And thanks to a polymer the chemists jimmied-up in Bern she can sweep a thin streak of blush across her cheeks as any young woman might if the spring is passing as it is passing through the well-advertised & transnational influence of Chanel's "instant radiance to go"— this skin of hers a little skanky she almost thinks to herself while staring in the mirror— tho for this working girl & everyone else alive today is a Tuesday a May 27th that no one can make behave so that at the same time the girl is worrying her make-up across the street in front of the post office a panhandler in shorts is taking off his leg, his plastic prosthesis unstrapped at the knee its buckles bent & chafing, he holds his free hand cupped for coins while the other rubs at the stump, absent mindedly stroking it the way a man might the belly of his wife if she were just three or four months pregnant, that is to say, lightly, his eyes inflected by worries, slight misgivings, fears, but whose wouldn't be? who wouldn't be afraid that the leg might be stolen? it could happen, you could be distracted by a passing bus— on the side of the bus a pin dropping in mid-air— the pin imprinted there on the poster the same pin so often caught in the act of falling on a television screen but in slow-motion 71 Ecotone: reimagining place as it bounces on a glass table by the mouthpiece of a white telephone clarity is what's at stake it's said, who we are— a light tap when the pin hits the glass— and even if no one is sure that what they've heard is what they were supposed to hear, exultant or glamorous, precarious or sad, they will all go ahead with what they have planned for themselves if only it could be a moment when they stand unburdened before this evening's bloody meats tomorrow's thunderclap. 72 ...