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The sermon for Jan. 25, 2003 is: animal 4:17 p.m. Animal. The one or two times I actually had sexual intercourse with Isella, that is, actual corporeal engagement on the battlefields of bed, bathroom and booty instead of our usual mutual intimate exchanges with a large, damp kitchen sponge (mine: Irish green!), that is, actual contra-contraception (what would that be? "ception"?), that is, as Isella romantically put it, "your penis is in my vagina!", either the first time or both times, depending on whether we had sex once or twice, Isella would immediately open her legs and lift them stiffly into the air. Like those supermen who gingerly choreograph jumbo jets with only two muted flashlights. No, let me try this again. She lifted her legs as if geopositioning herself in alignment with Sputnik. As if preparing to place them into stirrups. I suppose this metaphor includes that my contribution to the mise en scene would be to provide the swab for the Papp Smear. Do not fear, the gear is here for your Papp Smear! "Your penis is in my vagina," Isella said, locking her legs in the air as if she were upon an invisible rocketchair upon an invisible launchpad and she were about to lift off. Oh wait, I suppose now that this metaphor would include that I would play the part of rocket, launchpad and Mission Control. Oh great. "Your penis is in my vagina," Isella reported again. Just like, oh yes, as if she were reporting mission status back to Ground Control. This is Ground Control, Major Tom. It's time to take your birth control pills if you dare. Isella stopped countdown. "What did you just say?" "What?" "What did you just say?" "Did I just say something?" "What did you just say?" Um, think fast, think fast. Rocketship. Duck Dodgers in the twenty first and a half century. That little bit of dynamite that Marvin the Martian had. So innocuous. But world-shattering. Again, anecdotal proof (but why dispute its lack of science, when the results, i.e., Earth go kaboom, are so overwhelming?) that the most explosive consequences can lie coiled in the tiniest and seemingly comic packages. "I was probably quoting cartoons," I told Isella. "Probably one of the classic Bugs Bunny ones, possibly 'Duck Amuck' (Chuck Jones, 1952) or 'What's Opera Doc?' (Chuck Jones, 1957)." Isella's eyes surrender an amazingly complicated expression, so quickly that I canot decipher all its telegrams: okay, there's upset, and there's wonder, and there's disbelief, and there's a soup�on of Puritan providentialism. Plus there's probably something in her eye, probably crackers, since I am eating crackers. I say, "You don't believe me, do you," to Isella's eyes, which are turning bright red and blinking rapidly because, my pride wounded, my veracity doubted, I didn't actually say "You don't believe me, do you?" to Isella's eyes, though I meant to; it would be more accurate to report that I coughed a blizzard of cracker crumbs, uncrumbed crackers, and spit of various colours and vintages. This was because, my pride wounded, my veracity doubted, I had foregone the nicety of swallowing what was in my mouth before complaining, resulting in this festival of cracker goodness and optic nerve damage. I think, however, that Isella registered my general amazement and dismay at her unbelief. "Ow," Isella said. "Ow, ow." I was prepared for this. I had been told that actual sexual intercourse graciously relaxed social conventions and other etiquette; conversation would necessarily suffer for wit and elegance, but the mere fact that anything was said at all was, according to my research, extraordinary. I decided to sing Wagner. Not only would "Lohengrin's" overture add a saucy dash of German Romanticism to the afternoon, but it would also prove beyond doubt that I had probably been quoting cartoons three paragraphs or so before. "Kill the wabbit," I murmured into Isella's earlobe, and softly bit its edge. "Kill the wabbit," I solfeged into Isella's neck. "What?" Isella said, but she was slowly losing the ability to speak. I was prepared for this. "What?" Isella said again, distractedly. "'Oh mighty warrior of great fighting stock---'" "What did?" Isella said. "You say?" "Ow," I said when Isella's elbow cleft my pallate. Where was I? Oh, Bugs Bunny is a blonde-wigged Valkyre, and is simultaneously mocking, interrogating, and cruising a horny Elmer Fudd. "'Might I inquire--'" "What are you saying!?" "'-- to ask --'" "YOUR PENIS IS IN MY VAGINA!" Isella screamed. She hit ignition. She achieved liftoff. I finished my aria. "'What's up, Doc?'" The Eagle had landed. One small thrust for my hips, one giant payoff for Isella-kind. Isella regarded me imperiously from her royal perch. "Cartoons," she said. Isella is marvelous at poetic compression: with that one word, she conveyed all the centuries of loathing and distaste that have littered the literature since the discovery of sex. Advocate "The Red Wheelbarrow"'s all you want, Dr William Williams is good but forgive me, for post-coital soul-freezing spine-cramping one-word putdowns and condemnnations, the way Isella looked at me and intoned, "Cartoons" was more delicious, so sweet and so cold. "Animal," Isella said. Okay, not so good as "Cartoons," since there was actually a context for that word; Isella's new expostulation harkened to a more gnostic, private impressionism in verse; her most recent poem, "Animal," recently showcased at The Museum of Jonathan's Fancy (very rare exhibition: Jonathan gets laid!) veers from the sharp social critique of her earlier masterpiece "Cartoons" for a glimpse of an unfamiliar world. "Animal" softly touches palms with visionaries such as Paul Celan, Dylan Thomas, that weird chick who wrote "Glass, Irony and God," oh yeah, Anne Carson. Plus, um, the animal poems of Michael McClure. Um. Isella was looking at me curious, her eyes wide as saucers and wondering. "That's what you said," she said. "'Animal.' When you said you were thinking about cartoons. You said, 'Animal.'" "Well, Bugs Bunny, technically, is an animal," I said. "Actually, technically technically he's an animated drawing. Well technically I have no basis for saying 'he.' Can we ignore details? Disregard the metonymy. I don't think saying 'animal' contradicts my earlier statement of sixteen paragraphs ago when I said I was quoting Bugs Bunny cartoons. Specifically 'What's Opera Doc.' 'My spear and magic helmet! Magic helmet? Magic helmet! Magic helmet. Yes, magic helmet---'" "Shut up," Isella said. She shimmied in such a way that we were laying on the bed together without touching, but not touching in such a way that it sent sparks of electric current quivering across my skin. (That metaphor would mean that all those hairs would be power lines, or telephone poles, or oil derricks. But let's ignore details.) I was not prepared for this. "Shut up?" "Yeah, shut up, as in stop singing. Stop talking. Pretend you're not here. Jerk." "According to 'The New Revised Joy of Sex,' 2002 edition, this is the station of the crossed-chromosomes where we lie about and chat familiarly about philosophical quiddities, the events of our workdays, the current news, yadda yadda yadda. Everything we say is supposed to be imbued with this honeyed, amber salt and sweetness, like ambrosia served in a salted rim." "Oh my god, is this you shutting up?" Isella said. "Could you just shut the fuck up? Or do you really have to recite the Gettysburg Address?" She was crying. "'Animal.' It's a random word," I said, shrugging. "What's the big deal? Oh, it must be hormones." She closed her eyes. She balled her hands into a fist. Remarkably, here at this nadir of utter rage her face wore the same sweet expression of constipated consummation that she had had just moments before, at that zenith of pleasure. As the ancient philosophers have said, It's a thin line/ between love and hate. "YOUR FIST IS IN MY EYE!" I screamed. Or would have, except Isella's fist was in my eye.
 
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