Sabotage
Artifacts discovered in a high school office:
One water-color picture of a palm-treed
thatch-roofed
mountain village
a student's work --
I imagine warm brown sturdy women
draped partly with cloths of gay colors
carrying earthenware pots
walking in the shade of the houses.
A sign made up for the vice-principal
in some obscure art department:
SHIRT TAILS MUST-BE-TUCKED IN
AT ALL TIMES
--Naked I came to you
open-palmed and shivering--
Somehow a basic contradiction
Not rational surely
but groin felt
It is inconceivable to me that there is not a
huge picture of an odalisque
behind the desk.
A brown, tan-bellied, pink-tailed drawing of a mouse
on a purple background
holding his stomach
laughing uncontrollably
and pointing.