(c) 12/2020
This
is what it’s like to be the favorite—
late
night Moo Goo Gai Pan,
just
me and Daddy.
We
graduate to rum and coke.
Favorite
is
a trendy dress,
money
for platforms, albums, books.
Then,
I disappoint—
inevitable
as larva turning.
My
edges blunted
long
before the storm.
Favorite
is
betrayal.
An
unhatchable pupa—
never
an emerging imago.
(c) 2003
(c) 2003
In
this dream
I
live with my ex in a houseboat.
The
living room pitches—
my
beer bottle
rolling
in and out of reach.
It’s
impossible
to
keep my cigarette lit.
Shark
fins slash through shag
as
if the carpets were waves.
We
argue,
which
is familiar—
our
mooring gone slack.
We’re
carried out to sea.
Storm
clouds gather.
Waves
rise into tsunamis—
and
all the while he is still bitching
about
his missing socks.
The way the Landlady holds
her blade
it is clear she is
competent.
She is content
in this small kingdom
of tracked footprints,
plaster chips,
sprawled tools.
Where would I be without
her?
This endless restoration keeps
her busy.
Sturdy as a three-legged
stool
the Landlady rubs her crimped
knees.
At last she notices me
waiting to negotiate
a price for this
apartment.
I have been here for
years.
How much? I ask.
She shouts—goddam—
at the handyman
whose work is so inept
it could be a performance
piece.
He fumbles with screws,
box cutters—
undoing her work.
The Landlady rips the sheeting
from the window.
Jesus, she’s gotten old.
As have I—
waiting in a corner,
draped in cobwebs
like a veil.
Do I want this restoration?
It will cost everything I
have.
(12/19/2020 c)
I like to sit in bars and look for the ghosts of old
boyfriends.
I haven’t had a single sighting yet.
Of course, chairs rattle. Floorboards creak
as an unseen hulk passes like a cold, winter draft.
Sometimes there is a silhouette, a fleeting
but distinctly human shadow cast in tease.
Once I took a photograph, hoping for orb backscatter.
Instead I captured three pool players giving me the finger.
Electromagnetic field detectors don’t work.
Hunting is all guess, imagination and wild conjecture.
I wish just one man was here.
There is danger in investigating alone.
I always pack gauze and ointment.
What would I say if I saw them,
if they saw me seeing them?
It all seems cruel—
to say I equate their dying with abandonment.
They should have attended to their blood pressure,
the faulty heart, the lure of pills,
the second chances were last chances.
That I take their deaths personally.
Crueler still—
to tell them what I’ve done since they left:
all those Mai Tais, the faux honeymoon in Vegas,
in Mexico, the lovers and one-night stands,
especially the one who knew all the right moves,
the books they recommended that I didn’t read,
the blood, the spleen, the body,
all that terrifying breathing,
the letting go.
The letting go.
After several attempts,
I get it across—
burger,
with caramelized onions.
Something that basic
should not be difficult.
The fry cook heaps
raw onions onto the patty.
The bun is untoasted.
The meat looks undercooked.
I move to send it back.
In the hubbub,
the cashier hands my order
to a man walking by.
“Sir! —"
He returns it,
handled, soiled.
Where is a manager when you need one?
A boy—seventeen,
pimply,
reeking of cigarettes.
I explain.
Yes, Sure, there is a problem.
Why not accept it?
What is he supposed to do?
Then the owner,
sympathetic,
full of good intent.
She promises systemic change.
I wait for hours.
Nothing happens.
I am hungry.
I’m no longer sure what I want.
a good burger,
better service,
an apology,
justice.
I leave.
Tell everyone to stay away.
Yet I know
tomorrow
I’ll be back.
