...Jism Solipsism... 

She empties me, and 

as with most men, 

I am okay with that. 

Cue   caveat: 

It would sadly appear that 

said fluid depletion has 

herewith rendered me 

   utterly invisible. 

Please note that this affliction 

is generally deemed 

an impossibility. 

 

Yet as I pull myself from within, 

it becomes rather obvious 

that I no longer exist for her.

Sure, I will admit that my 

corporeal absence may 

very well be due to the fact  

her eyes are currently closed.

This and that my presence 

has failed to sustain 

an arch to her back. 

 

Indeed, though we both 

began this act of sex 

mutually  conscious, 

I would appear to have 

rendered love as lullaby,  

and rocked her womb 

unto a slumber  purr.

 

Or…

Or has she simply passed out? 

This a copulatory etiquette 

  gone in flagrante delicto. 

 

She was in truth besotted 

when she came to pick me up 

at some rank roadhouse there 

deep in the California desert.  

Hopefully less so when she 

drove me out across the Mojave 

to her gonad implode abode.

And now with dick dismissed, 

   an obscene unseen, 

I wander this stranger’s home 

as flaccid phallic phantom—

spermatozoon swoon less 

   erector gone specter.

And ectoplasmic antic 

now deboned and quite alone, 

I step out her front door 

and into the arid night.

I, the seed of all mankind, 

spewed forth unto 

   desiccation. 

 

Or maybe… 

Maybe it’s only the Mohave 

and I merely a man minus 

   auto-mobile mojo.

Phallus forsaken, here afoot 

I roam alone and boneless atone.

Leaving the glow of this house’s gloam, 

and following the road into darkness 

I am there transfigured transparent; 

   a fate castrate transcendent.

 

A mile from the house the darkness clears 

and the Mojave blooms as 

the invisible me is illuminated 

beneath a star canopy 

of nurtured neon novae.

 

And I cast my eyes upward 

into a Milky Way galaxy 

full knowing that I cannot 

see it as whole, 

   nor it see that of me.

Of course none of this galaxy above 

should be deemed of any more import 

than the milky way of me which 

I left there at that hollowed house.

 

Thus everything above and 

everything within begins 

to equally whither and wane.

That is, wane in relativity to 

a roll of illumination 

travelling at the speed of light 

less the deceleration of 

the cosmic pickup truck 

currently providing its source.

A twin-beam wrought road-radiance 

slowly edges by to the side, and as 

this truck creaks to a stellar stop,  

the driver leans his head out its window 

to there astro-ask,  “Say hey…  

Where you heading?”

 

With this question I come 

to the sudden epiphany that 

I am once again visible and that 

my great existential quandary 

has come to its   a priori   end.

 

Clearing voice of nihilistic angst, 

I respond, “I’m walking back to town.”

To this he chuckles and replies, 

“Well, it’s three in the morning 

and that’s easily a good fifteen miles. 

Why don’t you hop in the back 

   and I’ll give you a ride?”

Nodding yes, I step to the rear, 

climb over the gate and settle down 

   with my back to the cab.

 

Shortly we’re hurtling along the highway, 

I with the glow of the truck’s dashboard 

filtering through the rear window to 

veil my face with a shade of blue 

not unlike that of the 

blanket of stars above.

 

And as we all as one 

again achieve the speed of light, 

I look down to notice that 

I can no longer see my feet.

Indeed, that my legs are fading away 

into the truck’s bed and 

the blur of asphalt below. 

That when I hold hands 

   before lucent eyes, 

I see nothing   

but constellation.

 

And me? 

I am embarrassed 

for the truck driver. 

 

Embarrassed for he 

who drove me home, 

only to find how I 

was no longer 

   there.

 

Ó2021 Jack David Hubbell