Spreading my legs one day a week

Ballet has this funny thing, it's a funny little focus on being beautiful that doesn't exist in other places, and certainly not where I am most familiar with doing things like the splits. Where I'm from the splits are called hanumanasana, and they're kidney-cleansing, not choreography. I come from Yoga. Beauty to me is an idiom of ballet, for which I have begun to spread my legs one day a week.
Certainly I find yoga beautiful, but I don't strive to make it so. Ballet, it seems, is for others. Yoga, it seems, is for oneself. (Wouldn't it be curious if the masses flocked to yoga recitals, and ballerinas pirouetted for spiritual enlightenment?) There is nothing upsetting per se about exercise for the sake of beauty. But for the watcher, being watched is a struggle. I find myself becoming angry when my teacher emphasizes the angle of the class's arms, as if they were lengths of maneuverable compass. Here I am, a voyeur being exploited by exhibitionism. Is this a betrayal of personal idiosyncrasy? I don't think so. I am but a bag of tricks, and here are a few more. T-ruler neck, scissor legs, compass arms. It's an aquisitive attempt at advantage - to be pursued as much as possible.
Our childhoods are so repressingly formative; our neural pathways for pleasure, for comfort, for fear, for fashion, are so carved that I wonder how much we are really "choosing." Therefore I am in a constant state of war with my happiness, and this is why. I am questioning where my intuition comes from. It is arbitrary! I am re-exposing the photograph of my mind with ballet. And I am forcing myself to be beautiful when I am used to doing down dog.

Kiss my piano keys [self portrait]

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there is a naked woman in my blog

I am fairly certain there's a naked woman in my living room.
I'm afraid to check.
what if she sees me,
peering through the lace of my curtains?

There are voices filtering into my bedroom.
My roommate. And another...

'Even though I'm not single,' I hear the woman say,
'I had permission to kiss Johnny Depp should I have seen him while I was in France.'

What if Johnny Depp didn't have permission? I think.

I very much have to pee.

'I've been thinking I'll plant a garden,' I hear her say.
'I never have before, but it just sounds so...fragrant.'

Don't be afraid of a naked woman, I think.

'How's this pose?' I hear her ask.
'Shall I turn more towards you?'

I need to be around naked people more often, I think,
It would be good for me,
Especially useful when there is one in my living room,
and I have to go to the bathroom.

I lay on my bed on my back,
imagining how it would go if I were more of a whirlwind.
I would enter the room and see it all,
I would wave my hand,
'There's reason to celebrate, a naked woman in the parlor!'
I would speak with precision and simplicity, compliment her lines,
Invite her back to my piano bench any time.

I would be nothing if not nonchalant
and extravagant in a way that she would want to emulate,
And my roommate, the artist, the wispy woman with strong bones and pale eyes,
she would draw it, and the drawing would be a little bit me.

'The wine? I bought it when I was in Italy,' I hear her say.
'The food in Europe is so good.'

I give a knock to my lace curtains,
I give a peek.

She is indeed nude.

The living room feels like a giant womb,
warm and padded by a dropcloth.

'Hi,' I manage to say,
my eyes trained to her face;
her neck is stiff.

My hands clutch my body,
a distracted scratching, a sensing of clothing.

'I've always loved the smell of lilacs,' she says to my roommate without moving,
'and jasmine, and lavender.'




,

His nose had purple veins

First, someone in the opinion section of the Wichita Eagle defended motorcycle noise pollution by saying it was safer because it made the drunk drivers on the road wake up. Then I saw someone wearing a pair of gray cords that I sold to Arizona Trading Company last fall. Then I took a walk, followed an old man with a pipe and a houndstooth hat, and read that the Dow Jones was up 236 points. My newspaper stoop must not have sold because he turned around and asked me a question.
"Are you carryin' books?"
"Excuse me?"
"Are you Caroline Muchs?"
"No."
“She took an interview with me and paid $5.”
“Oh. Well I’d take an interview with you, but I can’t pay shit.” Pause. “Can I ask what the interview was about?”
A look crossed his face like he remembered something, or maybe forgot everything, and he slowly began to walk backwards across the street. It was like a car pulling up next to you and making you feel like you're moving, but you're on the breaks.
“Hello?” I guffaw lightly. Glance back to monitor his slow gait across the street and he looks back.
But I have a deadline. There must be something wrong with me because I saw a long-haired hippie wearing Mardi Gras beads and I somehow noticed his kind eyes and smiled at him. I guess sometimes I make the world more two-dimensional than it is because I think it’s easier that way, but it’s not. It’s just flatter.