Japan; or, Tenderness

In Carlos Reygadas’ s film Japon
a man leaves the city for the country,
to kill himself. The Indian woman
who puts him up is an aging widow.
Her house is on the edge of a canyon,
about to collapse into such abyss . . .
Near death herself, she brings him back to life,
Paolo would love the film, would Carlos?
When Juan leaves the theatre he goes back
to Adore’s house. He wakes the kid and sends
him off to HOT HOTEL with the room key.
Adore is waiting. She helps him undress.
Like the widow in the film, she makes love
to him slowly on her back holding him
inside with her thighs still firm for her age
and he pours himself out into the cup
she shapes between her knees drinking him in.
Then he tells her about the film he saw
tonight. She tells him about the horses.
The old man on the street was her rider
when Ira died. Juan asks if it’s him now.
She tells him he may have made her happy
but no, this is what comes of the loas
getting inside you, they seek their own kind
and you have no choice, you invited them . . .
In the full light of morning she guides him
into her and she smiles again. He knows
he’s hers now. She says no and she means yes.
What does he have to do with what happens?
The world may die around him, he has her.
But he knows that she will never be his.
She would die and leave him much more alone
than before he found her in her garden
and believed the loas had come to help
him give succor to Big John’s cancer.
As though they would save a man of evil . . .
all his life a lie, such harm he had caused,
such havoc wrought. He loved Allen Dulles
like a father. He helped kill Kennedy,
maybe, no one would know when Big John died
like all the others, innocent as well
as complicit. Men were not eternal,
only women were . . . Juan was walking down
to the lake. He would breakfast, then shower
at Peggy’s, look in on Betsy, she would
know what to do to dispel the sadness
he did not even know he was feeling
until she rose and went to the bidet.
Paolo was glad to see Juan, told him
he’d found this uncommon whore his soul mate
whereupon Georgia arrived to ask him
to take her uptown for the exercise.
When Juan arrived at The Saloon, Ray left
after telling him his eyes had new light
in them, what on earth had he been doing?

(25 February 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander