CLOAK/2.4ii

That night he spends a night out at To Be or She.
Disco beats at a boy's porcelain temples—
the self as seducer's diary, neat little locks at crotch, at throat, the tiny key tempest-tossed by sparrow pulses.
That sweet old queen who used to lie down in the rain and pretend to be melting apparently died.
A thinning head and face of blooded parchment, lingering by the salt-dammed reservoirs of care.
I spent so many years being too stupid to dress well.
The drunk lovers, the vast contingent comforts of their sad brown reek.
Take a leaflet! Take more than one!
Another call to go protest the protestors protesting the artworks—another coup for investors.
Catesby takes an early leave and a long route home, gulping cold smoke-dipped air. Stops at a convenience store for milk, one he's never been in, fishing for change he tosses the leaflet, folded and thumb-seamed, on the counter—
strangely, the cashier's plump hands reach out and unfold it. He hears:
The iron-poor blood of our enemies on the boil—jihad, indeed. Entirely irreligious the level of worldly involvement represented by active participation in protests and leaflet distribution against things upon religious grounds.
The future Senator—one or two clicks away from the Harley Fassbinder type—should be close-cropped, fat packed and gleaming in leather. Embroidered on the big breast pocket of the smock he sports instead, the number 754.
For Catesby's life had stood.