Having You
Is even more fun because the times of Diet Coke wars are over
you’ll even drink Diet Pepsi in a pinch and red sangria,
not too much ice and extra fruit on a plate on the side and the
coffee, two shots, ice cubes, and a spoonful of water in a
stemmed glass
partly because of your too-big two-toned loafers that slap on the
streets like an old biddy in New York feeding pigeons
partly because you insist on the Sol Hurok impresario curls of
shearling weighing down your shoulders
partly because of your hanging back on your heels to my pushing
ahead on my toes, yes,
partly because of that I am free to push ahead
partly because, as you hang back keeping your own rhythm
and grace while the cranes crisscross on the skyline, with
a little Bernie Sanders drone about you, you insist on hearing
every side and not accepting the commonly held despair insisting
on your process slow to erupt into passion as I do when I’ve had
enough and want to buy a shotgun,
metaphorically speaking
I look
at you hanging back on your heels white hair frizzing like wings
at your ears hat flaps snapped up that make you look like a
Russian. I’d unsnap those damn flaps to keep my ears warm
coming as I do from the tropics long ago my body not rebarred
but stiffened, during the Diet Coke Wars.
The thick armor you wore is now pierced by long love. I’m pushing
ahead on my toes as you say
I’d marry you. Again.
after Frank O’Hara / after Alex Dimitrov