Therapist: But did you not

Jane: dance tiredly

T: tenderly hidden

J: in the geography of an old wife’s love

T: in the past-time of cannons

J: in the first born son fleeing the bully

T: in three cheers for abandoned farmland!

J & T:  hurrah!

J & T:  hurrah!

J & T:  hurrah!

J: in the summertime queen who stole his breath

T: in the vowels like green mist opening

J: in the horrible laugh of the vicious idiot

T: in the broken bricks falling out of the bloodhound’s mouth

J: in the pride of the honeymooners shipwrecked on the atlas of false sand

T: in the priest

T: in the devil

T: in the cattle regurgitating jewels

J: in the sweet misery of playmates

T: in the kingdom of boundless flowers

J: in the friendly hand of the one without legs

T: in the lies the spirit tells

J: in the misfortune!

J: in the escape!

J: in you

T: in the decline of my

J: in the dying wetness of your

T: in the brush-fire spirit of my

J: in the mercenaries camped outside your

T: in the phantasm appearing now in my

J: in the treason evident in your

T: in the

J: in the?

__

Books which influenced this poem, and most of my poems of late: Case Studies in Psychotherapy by Danny Wedding; Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious by Sigmund Freud; The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton; & Case Studies in Abnormal Behavior by Robert G. Meyer. This poem, in particular, owes much to my reading of dialogues between therapist & patient in the above mentioned books.