United Front
Let's workshop this poem about people (or, perhaps better, facades of people) playacting genuine communication (perhaps movingly enough to convince themselves of their sincerity)
United Front Although Mark and Cheri now think nothing of their skits feigned impromptu for new blood (old too, aware that we all get forgetful with age and that, anyway, this is just what couples do), never did they reveal to each other (even in bed) that at first, new to socializing as one, both felt dirty reperforming the same stories for friends, the joint routines—down, yes, to bodily gestures, word stresses—varying imperceptibly each time (even each private smile along the way a rehash, its role that of emotion-hacking music in films). Cheri would clutch Mark on cue as he laid out, say, some embarrassing tale despite her protests (“Don’t you dare!”). Chiming in here and there, Cheri would spike the punchline, “Let’s just say we’ll not be showing our faces there again.” And just as the roars died, Mark would cut in: “Speak for your damn self, Cheri. You drunk! You were the problem! I was putting out a fire!” And Cheri would jab his ribs with an elbow rehearsed, and he would wince in mock pain “Ah!” on the couch—the crowd eating it all up. Aware that it too has a role, the eating it all up perhaps itself a crafted act born of obligation to present a united front or of social instinct to make camaraderie by performing camaraderie (or even of desperation to drown out memories of bruises, of wine bottles purpled against walls suggestive of that most looming and deadly wall on which all splatter), the crowd—beholding Cheri’s bottom lip bite of I’m such a bad girl under eyes slanted up to the ceiling corner— would surpass its prior laugh-o-meter score.
This poem is unpublished
Photo: usatoday.com/videos/entertainment/movies/2021/12/01/silent-night-keira-knightley-matthew-goode-christmas-movie-trailer/8791665002/