Two Tenths

A man’s facial recognition of breasts.

my caption

science paper to read

Two tenths and the man is elsewhere.
A blouse takes the room by the throat.
Cotton under tension.
Small physics.
Curve doing its quiet arithmetic.
The eye, that guilty moth, throws itself at the warm lamp.
Visual cortex strikes a match in the wet cinema behind the forehead.
Conversation keeps its shoes on, walks round him politely.
His cup cools in one hand.
Someone mentions parking, policy, mammals maybe, some dead subject with a lanyard.
Dopamine opens a gold till.
Amygdala rattles the pipes.
Prefrontal cortex arrives late, holding papers already on fire.
Desire has crossed the floor in stockinged feet.
No touch.
No invitation.
Only weight under fabric, the lift and settle of breath, gravity writing in cursive where he should not read.
One button remains heroic.
Manners sit down suddenly like a fainting aunt.
Brain wide first, body after, that slow animal dragging its tangled lead through the furniture.
Two soft moons behind cloud, making tides in a man who thought himself dry land.
He says yes.
Mouth operating separately.
The room pretends not to notice.
Dignity returns later, with carpet fluff on its coat and no receipt.