Spectacle by Anja Chivukula

ANJA CHIVUKULA

SPECTACLE

Between the body count, the clouds unfurl, menthol tropical, aerosol mystique, nothing to see by but the pulse and throb, rhythmic crushing in of limbships-hands, we know each other only by our body heat, jumbled close enough for claustrophobia. A floor up, breezes breathe through open doorways, cooling gasps of personal space, the flickering owf ceiling lights, but I don’t want it, no listless couches small-talk-full, no keening of the sterilewhite, don’t drag me back to him, wheezing with the bi-pap, push-pull, compressed air and consciousness not quite fitting in the same tired body, he feels like there’s a fog in his throat, my mother said, he feels like he can’t breathe, and then he didn’t. I wipe an arm across my face, slick with someone else’s sweat, salt-burn familiar as the gulps of humid air, stale, jostled by the basement crowd. We came to find our midnight sun, all motion pulled to glinting streaks, a speaker full of garish noise, the panting and the bodies.