ARS EROTICA OR (A CUP ON A STRING) // MILES SIMON
He makes me little scarves for my ankles
they flap at the wind like hermes’ boots
One day I asked him never to touch me again
He dragged a whole pine tree upstairs
for me, sap scratched into the wall
he spent weeks processing it
sawing and chiseling,
We sit for dinner,
chicken and flowers,
I get so close to taking the whole thing back
for months
all it would take is I can hardly feel anything that isn’t you
he excuses himself and the whirring sounds resume
He cuts long winding arms out of the pine’s stomach
and soaks them in wet cloth every day
soak and bend, soak and bend
so they can curve around the hallway’s corners
running under the rug like wires
down the hallway
from his workshop to my room.
He calls me upstairs to show me his progress:
I stand in the doorway to my room while he runs into his workshop.
From that workshop (where he sleeps now)
he pulls one thing and cranks another
and those long winding pine arms
extend out from under the rug, three of them.
They crawl blindly up the door
fumble with the knob
three thumbs
constricting with all their might
they pull tight under the rug like tendons raising in a wrist
and finally, turn it!
See?! See?!
the arms slide limp against the door
unpuppeted
as a chair screeches down the hall
he runs to me
but I hear the footsteps slow outside my room
as he remembers what I’ve asked
never again
his shadow almost kisses my feet
for a while he breathes
out of sight
Before he can finish the machine, the world catches up to us.
His mother leaves her famous chicken noodle soup
on medium overnight
to ash
somehow,
she chases away the fire department in her nightgown
but she can’t live alone anymore
so she moves in with us
a sheet goes over the machine,
even I forget about it for a while,
though each morning I step a little higher
than I’d need to
to not trip over the arms under the hallway rug.
He gets sick, as she dies.
Then she dies, and he’s still sick.
He makes it through work
gets home and just lays there
propped up in front of the tv
breathing through his oxygen mask
To save us
my addition to the machine isn’t nearly as
craftsmanly
I take thirty feet of string
(run it under my door and his door)
attach my end to a cup
and attach his end to the cup he’s already wearing around his mouth,
the oxygen mask,
and when I hold my cup to my ear
I hear hi darling and breathing
breathing
hear his throat peeling away,
that night I fall asleep to his workshop whirring
for the first time in so long
I’m reading,
feet tucked between the couch cushions,
wiggling them cozy
when I hear lips buzzing
the cup I rigged in the living room
come it’s done to your room it’s done
so I get into bed and wait.
I open my eyes to the door creaking open
dark
the machine ducks under the door frame
and the room fills with architecture
it walks now
stilted on the nubs of its pine arms
knees and elbows—dozens of them
it trails string behind it like a wedding veil
a wooden arm burrows into the gap between
my neck and the pillow,
And goes down my spine like a rolling pin
tenderly, like he can feel through it,
like he can collect
the sound
knocked from each vertebrae
in a cup at the end of a string
put it to his ear
and drink
when one rolling pin arm gets to my shoulders
another sneaks behind my head
rolls the same path
another, another
and by the time the first one rolls down to my calves
I am being lifted
the sheets slide down off me,
silk hangs from my feet
until I curl my toes and the sheets drop
in a deflating pile on the bed beneath me
higher I rise
as the conveyor belt of rolling pins continues their rhythm
down my back
The machine positions itself over me like a canopy
places four legs at the corners of the bed
something cranks
ker-chunk
and a cup on a string drops from a compartment above me
dangling,
I’ve heard oxygen masks will do that
on frightened airplanes.
I take the cup to my ear:
he asks me to help him
with my clothes.
No other words come through the cup
but one hand keeps it to my ear
to hear his breathing
as my other hand braces against
the leg of the machine I’ve decided to use
as a headboard
something to push against
as I make myself naked
I look up at the asymmetry of the machine
compartments droop
heavy with years of ideas
of how to touch me
martyr me
A compartment opens and
tiny whittled figurines jump out
they rappel down their strings
to land on my bare chest
One trips on a rib, and another points and laughs
(he does little nonsense voices for
them through the cup in my ear)
The ridiculed figurine sulks off down my stomach
it takes out a tiny wooden block and begins to read
her toes are just notches in her feet
she tucks those feet
into my bellybutton
the way I’ve tucked mine
into the couch cushions
for years.
she wiggles her toes cozy
that unique umbilical feeling
I am a lover no more
I am a stage
I am gaia
The figures bow, and
pull back into their compartment
I release the cup from my ear,
swaying on its string next to my head
I would hear if he spoke, but
no
there’s only breath from both of us
he leaves me to my silence
A wheel cranks, and squeaks
and through the door
carried into reach:
half a glass of water
with a smudge
Miles Simon is a writer based in Philly.