Doctor/patient (flashback, commentary, and foreshadowing)

Part 1: flashback (6 February 2009)

What are you feeling?

the unnamed dread of anticipation

How often?

every time i open my mouth

Why?

i think i’m in love.

I suggest you walk jaw agape
until the taste of longing
dissolves into honey.
Take two teaspoons
and call her uncle
in the morning.

her uncle

Yes,

a dead Russian was born in St. Petersburg

the unshaven scoundrel of Minsk;
the fitful scoff of rose petals and tuberculin;

the dripping faucet palate tap
of rereading Lolita, alone
in a bed full of
play
germ
ism.

is the one i should call?

Oh yes.


Part 2: commentary (Chapel Hill, dates unknown)

i do not know the man pictured above;
i know the one pictured below:

Vladimir Nabokov, photographed by Jean Vong

i met him on an unknown day in the spring of 1997;
he spoke to me:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip
of three steps down the palate to tap,
at three, on the teeth.
Lo. Lee. Ta.

she was not:

Kubrick's Lolita

or:

Lyne's Lolita

or even:

his Lolita.

Part 3: foreshadowing (on a precipice in Carrboro)

i discuss her with a woman whose name i do not remember.
my roommate is next door, preparing to pretend to masturbate.
the room is covered in aluminum foil:

a different wall (Washington Heights, 1999)

on the table there is:
a mirror, a razor blade, a book:

my Lolita,

it was all in the name of art.