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Page 102

We prefer the familiar horror. So many, these days,
can't recall ever having been anything but
their current hunk of flesh (love the one
you're with -- your width, your breath, your
death)

Partly it's habit: When I drove a cab,
after a 12-hour shift, I'd become the cab.
Walking home from the garage, I'd be aware
of the tree I passed invading the space
that had been my right fender. Ghost dents.
Someone waving for a cab -- for an instant, I,
in my little body with no room for big
passengers in mink coats, would start
to respond.

And not knowing we are the source of all games,
fearing the nothing we think we are (apart
from these bodies), the absence of games
to play (And how, without bodies, will we
know one another? How speak and know
we've been understood? Will I still be able
to have sex? Taste hot pecan pie with real
whipped cream? Can a spirit laugh? [Can
anything else?]) -- all the things we think
we won't have if we slip out of our cells --

too risky. We will tolerate only a light misalignment,
say we feel "high" or "beside ourselves", then
dodge back into our heads, to become
headaches.

Note: If one must experience "hot pecan pie with real whipped cream", it is safer to do so without a body. Or without the pie. For example, you probably experienced it as you read the words "hot pecan pie with real whipped cream" and for an instant (that blipped by mostly unobserved) tasted and smelled it vividly, a taste that "the real thing" couldn't match. How many times I've gobbled up half a slice of apple pie before I realized that it wasn't very good – crust a bit card-boardy, apples too sugary, etc. – and that I hadn't noticed, because I'd been eating my IDEA of apple pie, which is delicious.

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