Читать книгу Slant Six - Erin Belieu - Страница 11

LOVE IS NOT AN EMERGENCY

More like weather, that is,

ubiquitous, true

or false spring—the ambivalence

we have

for any picnic—

flies ass-up in the Jell-O,

the soft bulge of thunderheads.

Right now, the man in the booth

next to me

at the Nautilus Diner,

Madison, New Jersey,

is crying, but looks up

to order their famous disco fries.

So the world’s saddest thing shakes you

like a Magic 8 Ball;

and before him, the minstrel

who smeared on love’s blackface, rattling

his damage like a tambourine.

I have been the deadest nag

limping circles round

the paddock, have flown to beady pieces,

sick as the tongue of mercury

at the thermometer’s tip.

But let’s admit there’s a pleasure, too,

in living as we do,

like three-strike felons who smile

for the security cameras,

like love’s first responders,

stuffing our kits with enhancement

pills, Zig-Zags, and Powerball cards.

I read: to greet is the cognate for

regret, to weep, but welcome

our weeping,

because we “grant the name of love

to something less than love,”

because we all have to eat.