Mike’s up from Noe Valley one Friday
and we go out to Copper Gate
in Ballard with his in-laws, for pickled
herring and strange Danish cheeses.
Decorating the restaurant bathroom
hang light boxes displaying nude
women posing in black-and-white,
and men who are dressed like women.
This used to be a sailor’s bar, and what
remains is this form of their loneliness,
and it becomes mine for a few hours,
reminding my body of its lusts
for close skin and how different from light
skin is, more like glass, or the breathing
of a horse in a dark, sodden field.
We split off from the group to ramble
the provincial streets, wander bookstores
in and out, bars, a burger stand.
Kansas is a cold dessert, I say.
No Kansas is a tongue depressor, he says.
You can’t speak freely. The aquavit
we drink is clear as the rust of stars,
and my mind is shaped like a prow,
all black wood and forward riding.
When we return to Copper Gate
the only light remaining is above the grill,
a thin tube like a line in a play.
We’re still up, walking the streets,
looking for ketchup for the fries
Mike has discovered in his jacket,
and we are trying to remember which kid
it was at the pool hall back in Topeka
who bragged he could bend his body
and kiss his own penis, and showed us
I think in the alley, but Mike says no,
not the kid who could pop out his eye
made of glass, and let you handle it
for a dollar, but Cliff, who knocked
Mike down after a basketball game,
for winning, and he never showed us.
Our high-minded speculation fades
as we try to find the car, remembering
only that it faced the ship locks,
and when we find it we eat the fries
cold, and let the paper bag be taken
by the wind along the water, and settle
onto its currents, among the rustling gulls.