SOMETHING PERKY AND GLIB

The lady in the camouflage dress—I couldn’t
see her. And you, La Clartie, were supposed
to be in Taipei. What gives? Last night, Sangria
and tapas at the neighborhood tappy, and overheard
by the gal with the zig-zag perm (half Zs, half
question marks) the story of my life, which is in fact
fictitious. Do I have worries? Not a lot. I’ve done
the legwork: I walked from villa to villa
in the midday sun. That was hot. That was Sardinia
or maybe Trentino-Alto Adige. Now I roll my own
eggrolls. This is Manhattan. Most days
you wouldn’t notice the things that drive me crazy
with joy. (They’re that small.) Like this morning
on the East Side, old ladies (like storks) carry
puppies in their purses (like babies suspended
in blankets from their beaks). There’s at least one
moving part not moving in this metaphor.
But already I’m imagining Lily (Who else?),
her knees a little pink from yesterday’s sun.
(I love knees.) I haven’t known her yet
in the summer. (Can’t wait.) And now it’s June
21st and here I come. If this were a triptych
the third hinged panel might be titled “Trudging
through the Kudzu” or “Happiness, like Honolulu,
is Still A Way Away.” In the mist this morning
just before I get lost, an English au pair points
my way with a toast point.

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“BLACK AGAINST THE PURPLE COUCH SQUATS THE PIANO”

Like uncle, untouched for years.

And three brown roses jut up on their jaggy stems
from the glazed vase, past

its spidery cracks and half-inch of brown water.
Who could have forgotten this

wedge of lemon cake with lacy pink icing only
a fly has an eye on now, not to mention

the burnt match still unspooling
its curlicue of smoke up onto the ceiling

and the undeniable impression

one gets on the corduroy couch (still warm)
of someone’s heart-shaped derričre?

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EVEN PLINY THE YOUNGER GREW OLDER

Because my life’s something less
than spectacular, I affect a monocle,
a claw-handled cane, a limp that wanders
from one leg to the other. See, it varies

with the weather, which is never
good. It takes me down this arctic
expanse—not a wasteland, not wasted,
not yet. This short journey may

take forever. I hope so. I grow old.
How much happier I was when I was sad
is not polite to say. At least the sadness

I knew would last. Dear Eskimo, look how
my footprints pile up upon this page like
all the words I once believed you had for snow.