I Tell Baudelaire

by Karen Ashburner

I am in my "Rimbaud" t-shirt.  Really it is a t-shirt depicting Sylvia Plath pretending to be Rimbaud.  I am talking to Baudelaire about the relevance of Symbolism in a post-modern view of the "Super Bowl XXXVIII" halftime production starring Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.  The two of us are watching television, a show about a family of ring-tailed lemurs from Madagascar.  Baudelaire comments that one of the lemurs looks like Rimbaud.  He holds my hand under a blanket made of wool.  Sapho is in the kitchen cooking huevos rancheros.  I tell Baudelaire that I do not like eggs.  He says, "don't tell Sapho."  Outside a waitress is singing a song about urban life and the degradation of the soul.  Inside the air smells like baked apples and burning toast.