A Cheese Omelet At Leo's
A plush of cheddar and eggs.
As I fork it up, the ghosts
of Harvard Square surround me,
drawn by the thick aroma.
I won’t list them as Charles Olson
would, his sense of history
requiring many proper nouns.
I just experience a fluster
of torn fabric, a damp touch
that shrivels me a little.
The omelet warms away the worst
sensations: those of close
indecisive encounters sparked
by too many drinks at the Toga
where literary folks unloaded
shameless and ironic slurs.
The omelet smiles at me. I nip
a bit of rye toast and wonder
if this is the last cheese omelet
of my blighted career, the fork
more properly stuck in my heart.
Last Laughs
A boxful of bones arrives.
According to the packing slip
a mother and child, long ago
skeletonized into a beauty
few attain in flesh-borne life.
Must I reconstruct this muddle
by rule of nature’s anatomy?
Or should I design an artwork,
a sculpture that incorporates
both sets in a single entity?
I suspect that a famous critic,
herself recently dead, arranged
this puzzle to confound me.
Last laughs laugh most loudly.
With a spool of wire I set about
raising a monument to all
relevant lifespans: theirs, hers,
and especially mine, the gleam
of the antique bones impossible
to distinguish from what they mean.
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