Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Bumping Up Against Questionable Materials

Sometimes, in the reckless years
when Dad would still pay for the car
we would play that game, convinced
of the pseudotherapeutic value of the dare,
drive as long as we could
on abandoned roads
with the headlights off.

These days,
I play the same game at parties,
where the hazards are worse
and the guardrails intangible
but I keep the headlights on.
It’s that kind of blouse.

No compass
but the cow-tongued variations
of cocktail solipsists,
I make my way through the voices, confident
in the predictable courtesy of strangers
to step aside
for the blind woman.

All the better
when I find that one immovable object
and get a good sense
through the spilled wine apologies
that I have found the trunk
of the elephant in the room.

--

Why, it's yet another poem for that tireless activist, Fringe volunteer and all-around fun gal Sandra Diaz! What would we have done without Sandra? Probably gone to bed sober a lot more often, that's for damn sure.

Not the best poem I did for Sandra, but definitely not the worst. Her poems were usually some high-minded storytelling I would try to pull out of my ass about 15 minutes in, or cheap innuendo. I think maybe this started out as the first and ended up as the second. Elephant trunk! Get it?