One of those times I knew even then
I couldn’t inhabit fully enough.
Lunch late, Duncan and Neal ordering Cobb Salad—
whatever whoever Cobb is—
and how wonderful to order something you’ve never heard of
even if the ingredients
are right there beside it
in their crisp assertive adjectives.
But what I ordered was corned beef.
Hot.
Our service strange:
our waiter takes our water off as if we’ve already left
as if to remind us how ephemeral all pleasures are
but then brought us coffee we didn’t order
which we take.
Or took.
Time goes by in no time at all, confusing
all my tenses, Duncan’s watch on Indiana time
keeps telling us we’re late, Neal rattling on
about our chances in Bellingham,
shadows turning long and blue outside,
people in other booths leaning into each other,
feeding each other, inventing new forms
of procreation. In moments like these
the hothouse was invented. The kite.
The sandwich. I might have been lost
in the Delaware of my beloved’s hair
as I rowed my heart to the restroom:
a long, odd way: out the restaurant and through
the lobby of a hotel I didn’t know was there,
fussed-up with abstract art like seagulls
thrown donuts in a storm, the concierge
atomizing her approval of where I asked to go,
of what I was about to do, had done, about
that whole arena of the body and its imperatives,
so why must I feel so guilty? Misery, misery
flush the automatic urinals as if I’ve wandered in
from a slide show of what the junta did
to the hill people. What livid stepparent
steps into my room and finds me with the Sunday-section bra ads?
Atrocities traipse across front pages
but creak creak goes the machinery of my heart
as I return to my table, as I swim back
to happiness, people making decisions solely
based on pleasure even though they choose low-cal,
even as they chew with their mouths open,
telling about the dreadful things their first husbands did,
the thing a sister said that hurt them, the time
they stepped on the urchin snorkeling
and that was the end of Florida.
Oh, it’s all mixed up: the past, the present,
pain and pleasure and there’s something
inexplicably sweet in my mouth considering
it’s just perfectly okay corned beef,
it need not be the best I’ve ever had
and yes, yes, all over the world people
are suffering the basest sorts of deprivations
but don’t we owe this pleasure our commitment,
our awe of this gift god’s proffered us
or whatever we’ve replaced god with?
Creak, creak.
It’s why we’re given taste buds, so many nerves
in our lips and fingertips, why the piano, the cactus,
why women have clitorises, why and what for
frogs and pepper and the moon and no,
this isn’t the light of wisdom,
it’s the indirect lighting of joy,
of seduction, little fake candles on our tables
with bulbs shaped like flames and cars shaped
like flames, lovers shaped like flames
and the shoes of lovers.
Outside, above the road, eight-foot lips
declare desires we’ve just begun to formulate
in the test tubes of our yearning
and outside even further, there’s a spot on the overpass
that must have required hanging upside down
to proclaim the beloved’s name above the traffic:
spray-paint,
only the first letter botched.
I remember being a boy in winter woods,
snow and women’s underwear snagged in a tree;
oh, what mystery and a little menace like a good movie.
I thought one day I might be
if not exactly privy to a woman throwing her drawers in a tree
then something comparable. It’s why we’re given
tongues and hands for unbuttoning, clasping
and unclasping. It’s for doing round-the-world
and putting on the hot mustard yourself.
It’s for reaching for the check not fast enough.
There must be an aesthetic not based on death.
There’s a small bird called Pure Flame.
There’s a tomato called Pride.
There’s Duncan, there’s Neal, there’s me.
There’re free matches by the door.