I don’t feel comfortable preaching:
a renter of blue movies, forgetful of exercise,
I speak Yiddish when Student Loans call.
Broadway was spine straight and bone-dry,
and the sun was at my back, turning
everything into Arcadian newness.
The girls darted from the left, through
the traffic, certain of relations
between loose limbs and concrete.
Uninformed of mortality, they eyed familiar
corners--I was shocked by the pints of blood.
For once I was not angry. I drove slowly,
daydreaming about a lewd lunch with a lover.
Her streaks of gray threaten to engulf
her head’s canvas as she lisps
when she tells me, please, please, please,
stop sucking my skin. Her right eye
has a hole and our days are filled
with facial chaos and cable TV.
My Chevette has dents the size of thighs.
Judge, do you remember “The Wild One”
when Brando and his boys raised gravel
in Compton with their black Harleys,
winked at our awed moms,
and drank liquor down in single gulps?
How our fathers shut stores early,
movies were boycotted, and girlfriends
licked Marlon’s chrome?
Hell, even my rabbi learned to roll joints.
Sneer, if you want, Your Honor,
or go with your mistress for a stroll,
because that’s all it would ever be.
This guilt makes me confess:
cocky and cross-eyed Lee Marvin,
on his knees
on Main Street swallowing dirt
and blood, became my father,
teaching me to never refuse the girls
most exhausted, to drive straight
and hard, using
their legs for handlebars.
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