"The Room” by Amy Irish
after Mark Strand
God is a bored voyeur.
The room He watches 24-7 is a live-feed video
unscripted, unedited, an endless monotony of middle-age
bodies dressing, undressing, sleeping, on repeat.
God has an idea.
Now the room is a stage.
Two gorgeous actors bare their perfect physique,
perform a lover’s quarrel, but always stumbling
their lines, forgetting their blocking, over and over.
God throws down the script in disgust.
Now the room is a puppet show.
Two swing-jointed marionettes jerk and snap,
falling and tangling, pulling against their strings in desperation.
God is a laugh track.
Next the room is a strobe-light tableau.
Two bodies highlighted in stop-motion grotesquery.
Undressing is a strangle of fabric. Sleeping is a writhe of snakes.
God is a black-clad art critic.
Now the room is a black and white photo.
Camera so close that the hair on the bodies is beach grass
and the furniture an ocean of artistic blur.
God squints and tries again.
Now the room is a satellite image.
The two bodies just abstract slashes of moving color, blurred
against the solid geometry of buildings and land.
God is almost there.
The room becomes a painting.
Two luminous figures are frozen, mid-motion.
The woman has begun to disrobe, her dress unzipped
and one shoulder shrugging out.
Her head is turned just a little,
observing from behind a curtain of dark hair.
She watches her man. Lost in thought, he stares blankly
at the distance out the window, his forehead creased in frown.
Both are so tired of quarrelling.
Both are ready for release.
But they are trapped in brushstroke, in medias res.
And the empty canvas of the bed
will stand between them forever.
Satisfied at last, God moves on.
About Amy Irish
She/Her/Hers
Amy Wray Irish grew up near Chicago, received her MFA from the University of Notre Dame, then fled the Midwest for Colorado sunshine. She has been published in Spit Poet Zine and Thought for Food; she has work upcoming in Progenitor and Chiaroscuro. Her third chapbook, Breathing Fire, won the 2020 Fledge Competition and is now available from MiddleCreek Publishing. For more information go to amywrayirish.com.