21 September 2005 | Vol. 5, No. 3

Notes for a Thirty Volume Letter To You

by DAVID J. ALWORTH

"We are trying to decipher what you have been shouting

                For the past forty minutes

To the young couple sitting at the corner table of a patio café,

                A few bulging veins snaking up your forehead,

Your hand inching closer and closer to his corn niblets,

                Your words jumbled by the peat moss in your mouth."

Things have come to this.

                I'll see a man dancing in the park with a ukulele,

Holding his arms high above his head and twisting his hips in erratic spurts,

                As if to remove a pair of underpants

Without using his hands.

                Of course, he always turns out to be me.

I have spent considerable time

                Dreading the evening meal with you.

I have wasted the afternoon staring

                At a tiny, pocket map of this city,

Which I have had superimposed on a picture

                Of your one, green eyeball.

Because I know there will come a point in the evening,

                When I have leaned back and put my elbow on the seat beside me,

When the waiter, like a giant tropical insect standing on its hind legs,

                Has shimmied to the kitchen with our leftovers,

That you might actually say something, anything

                Instead of biting through your tongue so I will take you home.

You say, "I have been tired recently and I've tried to tell you

                About this, about how I'm feeling."

I have looked at you, but you have not seen me looking,

                Cleaning under your cuticles with a toothpick

And flicking your tongue assertively,

                Trying to dislodge a stewed carrot.

Lately, the skunks have all gathered outside my window.

                They have climbed and climbed.

I have tried using a broomstick to shoo them,

                But they just nibble at it each time I thrust it in their direction,

Chewing the splinters carefully, making anecdotal remarks.

                They do not know about the colander.