When You Come over Here

The first thing that you always seem to do
When you come over here is start to talk
About the man whose heart can’t take the shock
Of loving you — which ends with losing you —
Of having all his wildest dreams come true
Only to realize there was a clock
Counting the minutes till you freeze, and balk.
I’ve been thinking you mean to hurt me, too.

Do you? Please notify me if it’s so,
To be on guard, or have I put the cart
Before the horse? I’m watching as you start
To purse your lips. You smile, your pupils grow,
And you lean in toward me, so I know —
All right. Come over here and break my heart.

Food Service

Uneaten gourmet fish sticks on my plate,
Discarded bottles of sweet prairie wine,
I chose to end the meal rather than dine
Without my own staff’s service. What I hate
Is that suggestion that another wait
On table when my footman, Gertrude Stein,
Is unavailable. What’s mine is mine;
Or else I’ll eat directly from the crate.

I had the crate delivered to my door
With sprigs of watercress and garlic buds.
The slaughtered sheep had chewed long on their cuds,
The apples had been eaten to the core
By favoured goats, who would have swallowed more
If we had let them. I won’t eat soap suds.

Of Grief’s Onset

Announcing I had suffered a contusion
Of the heart, and offered an injection,
Subject to a general inspection,
I came to the obligatory conclusion
That this would be a sad, feckless intrusion,
As I had suffered no untoward infection.
Declining, I explained the close connection
Between my bruises and your thick confusion.

The primary response to my reports
Of grief’s onset, aside from merry pickets
Exclaiming that I should be selling tickets
But curbing costs, was silence. In the courts
The judges wink. Expecting harsh retorts,
And bold suggestions, too, I listen: crickets.

Taken

You took my breath away when you walked in,
But I set that aside. I was so good
(Not clever, not untempted yet by sin,
Just somehow good), because I understood
Our borders, the one demand made by a friend
Who introduces you to some great beauty
That he’s been saving for himself: to bend
And stand back nobly. That’s your duty,
But times can change, and when he stepped away
I waited only three days — no, three years —
What was I thinking? Sorry, I can’t say,
Though I was certain it would end in tears.
Sometimes a man can’t figure out he cares;
I knew — still I was taken unawares.