The Alpaca Sofa

It is my honor

to sit seiza

in front of your alpaca’s mouth.

I calmly feed it

specially-filled gyoza.

Your alpaca smiles

at the flavors

and the hallucination 

of being

a gorgeous, celibate panda.

You ride high

atop its hallucination’s plush

black and white back

like Sam Peckinpah

swinging a colorful handbag

above his head

and shouting quotes 

from Zizek.

Within 

your alpaca’s brain.

a film of chemical cinema

plays. From its bluest-blue sky,

a panda-god slowly descends--

upright, spot-lighted and humanoid

(not a filthy zoo-bear). 

Behind its movement, a river

of noisy pink flowers churns--

10,000 zujaka petals

falling off from the edges of sounds.

Your alpaca smiles,

its eyes half-closed in effort

to stay alive within the dream,

to not lose the line

it draws itself on.

Perched below and above

your alpaca’s luxurious fleece,

we chat about odd creations

of the world, connecting distant

details with things vaguely visible,

finding more than could be 

possible in this world without us. 

Your alpaca eats another gyoza 

from my hand. Its digestion rumbles 

from deep inside and we laugh out

a perpetual rebellion of

culminations.

for RM

by jerry gordon

4.17.13