Espresso: a Philosophical Inquiry

After pulling out, nobody talks about ISIS

Sabrina Carpenter Live from the 2024 MTV VMAs

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I’m the backup dancer in a space-suit.
How sweaty it is in here!

I’m stuck deep in my no-sleep era, ready 
to make out with an alien – does she know?

It’s enough to scatter my body on the high winds.
How does gender work out there, between the stars?

All the world has eyes for Sabrina —
for the kiss-print she put on her thigh.

That harlot. Stealing away the camera’s eye
which should be focused on my perfect body.

Since when has sex been cursed with rhetoric?
Since ever, it seems. We grew throats to press

our breakups & engagements on the public consciousness
when in fact it constitutes an act of gratitude.

I’m thankful for so much. I go around wishing 
I could thank all the people that I meet. 

Perilous, this. To be of the world is to share 
your atoms with it. Probably 

the most important ones, those of diamond
set in softer stone. Rain will free them

in a matter of time. Meanwhile I’ll think about 
what pleases me like a gas fireplace’s 

flickering embers & feel the room rise 
with dry heat. (My own ember glows deep 

in old American coal.) Believe it or not 
I’m terrified of life on stage. It burns 

with a dangerous kind of love: fire season 
sans FEMA, bird flu sans vaccine,
 
life insisting upon itself no matter 
what gets trampled in the process.

Becoming meat is also an act of process.
Making love is a drawl of cause & effect.

After pulling out, nobody talks about ISIS.
There’s no time between breaths to pause and correct

this image of a vestibule, found late
in the middle of Her Majesty’s bed-chamber.

At the VMAs, the end of empire matters little.
Give up what’s real in favor of what’s imagined —

Terrified by the choreography I touch the mirror 
palm to palm, meander in prop clouds’ cotton swathes.

There are valid excuses for a poor night’s sleep.
Some are even fun. A noble proof of life,

this urge to make some noise. Maybe it’s enough 
to move in time with someone else’s video. 

Then, when the pre-show act becomes
a Grammy winner...that’s how it rides,

whether behind the camera or before it.
And when the song ends and everybody looks up

at the lens and the fans are making little hearts with their hands
it clarifies with terrifying precision the feeling

of joy without which live music loses meaning
and memory gives way to recording.

Want to be frozen in time? Go ahead. Play it again.
I’m ready to fall for anyone anywhere with faith

in the power of right thought, action, music.
It’s a medley that plays only once.

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