The Poetry Marathon

The coffeehouse had been my hub ever since I’d moved downtown;
its dark walls were covered by burlap coffee bags, and, upstairs,
a large reproduction of Robert Doisneau’s kissing couple
stood over an old sofa where younger kids took over.

As long as I had my coffee and my view of Ron, I was content.

Ron was a mystery to me, a smiling man of mystery.
Seated at the corner table by the back door- the more convenient for cigarette breaks –
of the coffeehouse, he drew large pencil drawings on nine-by-fourteen sheets
that he stored in an aluminum briefcase with others, his growing book.

I tried shrinking under my laptop along the north wall,
trying to not stare at him and averting my eyes every time he looked up.
His angled face looked down, absorbed by his work,
but each time he raised his gaze, it seemed to be to find me.

Over months, we gravitated to each other’s tables.
Ron described his project, a comic book, as I watched his tan hands gesture,
noted the dimple in his lean face when he smiled. Unbeknownst to either of us,
our barista, Jack, had anointed us as a perfect couple if we got together.

“Melron,” another of the baristas calls out when he sees us enter.
It’s still our hub, though now we sit at the same table,
as we chat with others who have made the coffeehouse a part of their day,
a place to reconnect with each other over a cup of coffee.

I know this is terribly prosaic, but 1. I’m too tired to pursue another angle and 2. I forgot my second point (see: 1).

Every other weekend my sister and I stayed with our grandmother,
who lived at the bottom of sloping Lawndale.
We took a bus downtown on Saturdays
and downtown meant Kresge’s.

Though, we would also pop into Macy’s,
the department store was our main destination.
The street-level floor held cosmetics, jewelry and toys.
I don’t remember the upper floors.

Of course, we had our hamburger lunch
downstairs, in the Kresge’s diner,
where our grandmother would steer us to one of the red leather booths
to wait for our waitress, an older woman with red hair in a beehive.

My first milkshake was in the Kresge’s diner.
If it had been around when I was older and began taking myself downtown,
would I still be as charmed by the simple fare,
those high-backed seats and the red-haired waitress?

Probably.

I know. Two haiku in a row. And, I cheated a syllable on the third line.

Cousin Lymon’s phone
ringtone: Kanye West’s “Mercy,”
startles Amelia.

Stuttering, she answers
in staccato lines, willing
herself to speak out,

“I can see why it’s gonna be their last one,”
a nose-ringed young girl at the Estee Lauder counter is chattering.

Mrs. Mary Anne MacLeod Trump shudders inwardly,
her chin a vice-grip of disdain, and allows a pair of hands
to drape her fur over her shoulder.

“My compact broke,” she’d told her husband
and called for the chauffeur, fuming.
Another blonde to welcome into the family!
We’d only just broken the Czech in.

The driver watches his mistress’ hair in the rear-view:
A Leaning Bouffant of Pisa represented in a concoction of Aqua Net and Brass Balls #109.

“Would Madam like to stop anywhere else?
A slight but firm head shake informs him to remain on the Expressway.
He shifted. It would be easier to enjoy the quiet
if she weren’t so silent.

Los Angelinos are the most spatially distracted population in the continental US.

You think this as the museum crowd walks into you.
“It is time for stormy weather.”
Everyone intones, June gloom,
and you wander Melrose for a decent jacket
to survive the remaining junket weekend.

The Blue Line’s brand new; you jaunt from one
tourist hunt to another, but are still confounded
to have a simple request for how to reach a particular street
delegated to a complete stranger, who, of course, doesn’t know.

And, don’t ask a taxi driver.
The one you have is worthless.

Is it coincidence that all the tourist attractions
smell like public urinals?

If Kansas City is a remote expectorant,
Los Angeles is a fever dream with no relief
but departing plane lights.

All your favorite LA movies:
an ex you try to dial
on a sleepless night.

INT. NIGHT. DINER.
ANNE
(A Vivacious brunette with black patent heels and red lipstick walks in, laughing.)
Syl, we’re both drinking something stronger than coffee, right?

SYLVIA
(Tall, but wearing flats, and long-ish hair in bangs.) If it has lemon in it, I’m fine with whatever you order.

ANNE
I thought so.

SYLVIA
(Motions to booth. ANNE nods her head.) Do we have anyone joining us?

ANNE
Do we need anyone else to join us?

SYLVIA
Is this to be a completion discussion? Pater/mater? I mean…

ANNE
– Pick my poison?

SYLVIA
(As drinks are served.) I think we already have. (Motioning to menu.) A slice of pie sound good?

ANNE
(Lighting a cigarette. Waves her head “no.”) Go ahead, though.

SYLVIA
Like I need it. Ted pinched my hip this morning.

ANNE
Pinch his back.

SYLVIA
The Hughes’ men don’t respond well to playful tweaks.

ANNE
And our bodies do?

Would you believe it –
I have an intervention with myself
and it was cancelled?

How about this –
How about we fax a picture of Dudley’s bare ass –
yes, one exists – to all the movie studios?

We could expect a return phone call, then.

Did I mention? I met a punk singer
in Kingsbridge the other day.
She asked me to sign her chest with a red marker.

Something inside me winced,
but I’m agreeable if the lass is buxom enough…

Something still unfunny is curdling beneath my right kidney.
Why don’t you pour us a round and I’ll tell you what
the rainbow doctor played while I was under the knife.

I keep forgetting that handsome man to my left
isn’t my reflection, but my biographer.
“Is it true you dreamed Dudley was turning you on a spit?”
Oh, dear, that was the hangover talking.

Desk: cluttered shadows –
Baby’s breath stillborn – but not
talking today, hon.

Igor Sweeney looked you square in the Adam’s Apple if you were one of his underlings.
But when he was ready to sell, he could make Wilt Chamberlain feel like a shrimp.

For seven months and one day, I observed Sweeney – Iggstoke to his friends –
and wondered how, with such a repressed and rotating cast of staff,
he maintained his exemplary self-regard for his publishing exploits.

Did he not keep his over-worked and over-scrutinized editorial staff
on compulsory overtime to send out zip-code ordered issues of the magazine
that would arrive, gratis and unbidden, to the reception desks of
Fortune 500 companies across the city?

Was he not incapable of working diligently with said staff without,
when asked a mundane question, bellowing,
“I’m trying to concentrate here!”

My first week, I knew my days were numbered.

He was patron to none but himself.
The mag, a sham for deals over which even his comptroller raised an eyebrow,
called itself the soul of the city.
Dead souls, maybe, you thought as you walked into the gulag of dislodged journalists.

His wife, a shrew whose younger visage – as well as Igor’s – graced the first page of every issue,
had a Girl Scout’s expertise in office espionage; this I gleaned when a chance Email
between myself and my equally incredulous editor
received a reply in a dialogue in which she’d not been copied, or blind-copied.

Were we in an Inc? Or an Ingsoc?

I marveled, to lesser degree, as I neared completion of the real reason
for my being hired: to clean the online archives of the star columnist,
whose indifference to fact checking was equaled to his poor grasp of grammar.
Months of conservative cackling had I cleaned under Sweeney’s hawk accounting.

One day after my completion, I received my reward:
A summons to the editorial board room, where sat Sweeney and my
poor Horatio editor, now powerless to all but his own leave-taking.
I sat, knowing what to expect.

“Mel – ”
And, then, I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing.
Every time, he began his Mr. Cleaver pretense, I laughed harder.
He couldn’t even fire me without my rattling his concentration.
Then, under his breath, I heard, “This girl is nuts.”