Chat Room
P. entered a third space
from which he could watch time pass
instead of walking to the monastery
in the middle of the night.
His opaque sexuality derived from the absence
of a guarantee that his person would remain intact.
He recognized this in himself
and we stared at the pylons regressing
into the lackluster northeastern woods.
The monastery was a display
before which he claimed sangfroid
a picturesque ruin to which he was conveyed
as though by boreal fluid.
Everyone loved occasional works like this
their allusions to complementary and absent events.
Weaving around proliferating drywall
I despaired over this desire.
P. joined the migrant workforce
and grew more disconsolate and distant
and drunk in our presence.
Our presence was only possible
because of advances in technology
in a dialectical relationship with their debasement:
servers in cold rooms
and a recursive void of woodblock chat sounds.
Paul Foster Johnson, "Chat Room" from Study in Pavilions and Safe Rooms. Copyright © 2011 by Paul Foster Johnson. Reprinted by permission of Paul Foster Johnson.
Source:
Study in Pavilions and Safe Rooms
(Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2011)