You think these buildings are undeniable?
	The rules of the street,
	governmental ideology,
	currency, or the politics of social graces and lovers' relationships?
	Their pragmatic and symbolic significances
	or evident dignity and ingeniousness?
	Who is it that says such things
	are undeniable?
	Do Tahitian man and woman feel inadequate
	devoid of Western culture diplomacy wealth?
	No, they run and kiss
	amidst the coconuts and palms and huts.
	But the same is reverse.
	While we may drool
	over tropical beaches and shade and umbrella-ed drinks
	our tropical fever solely urban contracted.
	On vacation beach we run and kiss with the city streets still
	flavoring our mouths and molding our feet in the sand and scenting
	the ocean air salting out hair and skin.
	Leave the city and the city huddles
	in our fabric, in the recesses that harbor and spawn
	our manner of thought and movement - a huddling
	that can be manipulated to shift posture
	into relaxation and uncompetitive comportment.
	But just as swim trunks can be worn by entrepreneurs,
	a business suit can be tailored to fit aborigines.
	The city, modernity, paradise
	- all not undeniable. As real
	as they are,
	as influential and blunt as they are
	to our dispositions, their indelible presence in our histories,
	they do not conjure the voice of my demeanor.
	All pressures of the city cannot stifle or quell
	the illumination of my matrix,
	my cells and organs when I stand next to my love,
	seeing the splendid rush that blossoms your face and moves your hand to
	squeeze my arm in laughter.
	Tahiti beach paradise cannot massage and soothe stubborn anxieties and tense
	outbursts.
	To know your hand is coupled with another not mine raises my stomach
	to jealousy, my fingers and throat noxious
	with irritating emissions pulling me to your phone number in spite
	of my favorite dinner waiting for me in front of the only movie that makes
	me jump and cry now showing on television.
	All teh Real can't convince me
	of undeniability. Do I hallucinate?
	Misinterpret, overreact, infatuate out of bounds?
	I do not know
	if we are separate or if I am
	oversensitive to your gregariousness
	but my jealousy says undeniably
	you are not mine.
Copyright 1998 John Feissel. All rights reserved.