Analysis of "44306" by Meg Johnson

Poem found here: 44306 by Meg Johnson

The opening line reminds me of the opening line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."  "Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky".  Compared to, "Let's get this ménage a trois started."  Okay so maybe the sentiment is different, but the connecting as humans, a couple versus a collection of three, "You, me, and this three / legged dog of a city" is there.  I guess this'll be from my perspective, but I feel the lines are connected and now I'm relating the mood of Prufrock, observation and desolation, to this poem.

"The most majestic / creature here is a blimp in the sky,"  and from Prufrock, "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table;".  The metaphor in Prufrock parallels this poem's pretty straight forward description.  I don't know what this means exactly.  This could be a breaking point in the poem that critiques Prufrock, or this could could be just an homage to the poem, or, as usual, I can reading too much into this.  And what keeps me guessing, in a good way, keeps me reading.

"Middle class looking houses are / undercover brothels."  How one thing appears safe is really a symbol of destitution, depending on how you see brothels.  The poem definitely turns the images into a more seedy atmosphere which is added on by the following lines, "Drive through / convenience stores faced vandalized / elementary schools.  This isn't a cohesive sentence.  That kind of majesty and comparative lines in the beginning of the stanza becomes this language -- a bit more real and aggressive.  It feels like the speaker is trying to balance "sexual blase" along with "sleaze" topic wise, depending on how you see menege a trois.  When is it porn or when is it parody?

Then we get a break.  And the poem shifts, "Let's pretend gas stations are romantic.", towards sentiment -- to attach a feeling to the action, to be close under such circumstances, "My house by the highway could / be a lovers' paradise if we get naked fast / enough."  Why mention the speed of things?  If we look at this as losing time, then the last vestige of sanity is the speaker's house close to corruption -- whatever way you think the poem is going: definitely a good poem to look in a marxist way.

"When our body outshines / my past lovers and this city, I / won't know if I'm happy or sad."  The last three lines puts the other as something to put on a pedestal -- a lover, someone to fulfill a connection.  Then with the line compares this ideal against, "past lovers and this city," which is once again a connection within a connection (menege a trois, you, me and this three legged dog of a city.) bring meaning, something more.  Is it a happy moment to now have it?  Is it a sad moment that the speaker waited this long to have it?  Maybe that's where the emotion lay in uncertainty of placing significance in the signified.