In Your Monkey Suit

...are standing in line at Starbuck's. The smells: cheap cologne - new plastic - cigarette fingers. Some kind of Brazilian beetle sheathed in iridescent blue is seated at a table sipping a straight tall black. He's about six foot with a thousand eyes and wears a black French beret. Two girls with translucent skin are whispering in Vietnamese behind you. In your suit pocket is the drug that makes you happy to go back to work. You only have 15 minutes left. You need to find a bathroom for the drug. You think about Jessica. You dream pink airplanes.

...at the line of children standing against the wall. Their eyes flash like twitching black dots. The wall is ancient stone with moss growing in the cracks. Willow branches hang, shading a hidden path. The children are uniformed; black hair, black shoes. You are in Japan on business and you hate fish and live at McDonalds. At the hotel: you drink excellent whiskey and fax documents, receive some in return. Tokyo nightmare: you stare for hours at the red and blue neon blur until your eyeballs spin like hot marbles. You b r e a t h e . . .

...Cyndi Lauper but maybe cuter. She's tight with a huge doughnut of a girlfriend whose sweaty face gleaming in flourescent light reminds you of melting glaze. Hey... You motion to the bartender who is a Meatloaf clone and he bends, fishes a Heiniken from the ice. Oh Hi! she says, and now you remember her: thin body - dirty fingernails - the shriek that woke the dog...doughnut girl drags her back into the crush of bodies on the dance floor and you escape. You drive all night and listen to that Cyndi Lauper CD over and over.

...in a cage is what you feel like. You listen to Mr. Flemming drone on about the business cycle, and the cutbacks, and you wonder is it real or a dream. You are on the 42nd floor of a glass prison surrounded by men in conservative grey and blue suits. You are wearing one too. You spot a fly crawling across the window behind Mr. Flemming. A thin silver proboscis darts out of the fly and spears him in the neck. He doesn't notice. The fly slurps him down like a Coca-Cola and he collapses to the floor, a punctured balloon. It is the signal for lunch.