At the orgy, everything slowed when Bethany 
explained why barns are red. Hundreds of years ago, 
farmers sealed them with linseed oil mixed with milk 
and lime and rust, as rust was an abundant crop 
and killed fungi and mosses, think of people getting by 
with what they had and those who followed 
honoring that tradition or not wanting to stand out 
with blue barns or green or yellow, she said, 
the apparatus of cock and tit, of tongue 
briefly educated, before the facts were absorbed 
and the process of consumption resumed. I learn so much 
at these things, Thomas said to Carol as they were leaving, 
who’d briefly lectured on The Magna Carta, tugging the collar 
around Peter’s neck the whole time, someone’s pinky 
up her ass, lips grazing her breasts, a lapping sound 
as of small waves against a pier as she closed her eyes 
and spoke of Clause 61, the establishment 
of a committee of barons who could overrule the King 
if he defied the Charter. But wasn’t the purpose 
of Clause 61 not the protection of the people 
but the removal of the King by the Barons, someone said 
from deep inside the chamber of flesh as Carol came. Yes, 
she screamed, some see it that way, and fell back 
and into or onto, between or with or as the touch 
of touch or the touch of sound, what was the difference, 
how could she tell where anyone began or ended, and why, why 
would she want to?