Where probably unreal green ocean
Where probably unreal green ocean and white sand shown through the glass wall that opened from a buried storefront in the Marquis lobby, that I passed every day twice in dazes, mauve fabric on the tackboard panel stops my eyes, my fantasies. The U.S. Virgin Island tourism office closed months ago. In the service elevators my bowels tighten against a metallic salty whisper and the terror without the sun of swimming down to clutch the seafloor instead of up through the black to a breath. But I think it is all a choice. Even the worst lots are choices: the seafloor always sunken there tempting freezing or other elevations of diggable earth. I close my eyes and my fingers over the pushbar of the trolley I and it revolve in a murky falling drift through the atrium, trolley and I change places and my smock hanging loosely over my back like we were floating in that ocean but looser, without a body or a timecard and all the doors open and the iron maiden sun from every isolated window impossibly disintegrates my insides floating too around me in a cloud of mauve giblets. Breathe out, keep blowing and it scatters my confectioner’s guts like some dirty fake gold bolts of lightning shooting back toward every door. Blow harder and my eye sockets see black stars and I sink against whatever direction I and trolley helicoptered and blow until there is no air left and I don’t want any more or we stop still in the space left behind by all breath. The elevator door opens and the trolley holds me out along the precipice walk around the atrium. The action of the big casters is peaceful on the loud carpet. I fell asleep in front of the TV last night and I see a flashing of hundreds of smiling faces when I blink, all lit up blue and looking insane with happiness.
