When the movie theatre closed
we decided to stay.
It was depressing, at first,

The pains so produced
are not, of course, excruciating—
more abstract,

I took the trip just to try it
in spite of warnings from friends
about over-cooked borsht, dreary

The ass-muscles sag like a sling
but those glorious membranous wings
expand all the more extravagantly—

purple petunias, amaranths, flattened
daisies, mattresses with phosphorescent
bodies that shimmer in the dark—

started from unpretentious beginnings
and hasn't, in fact, come very far along—
still occupies the back wall of the bedroom,