Anniversary Party

Last year, I fretted about fools

and fooling, girlfriends in Gethsemane,

the years of trust unspooling.

I thought: those moon-blanched throats

bleeding such odors. Thought paper wafers,

silver dollars. Pancake houses

cold in the floodlights after a dance.

This year, will I take a chance

on. I can’t tell you. Spilling milk

or syrup. Sneaking out to smoke.

This is the garden, girls. Gasoline

fumes climb like vines.

What blossoms in these mirrors:

your face, my face, her face, her face,

and rainbows, man!

Mais oui, filles. Cultivez.

I’m scared of that two-faced embrace--
sure! Sure we all are, but the day’s

got twenty minutes left in it

and it’s been Maundy nothing.

Nothing’s sacred, literally.

Open the door! Umbrellaless!

Clutch Judas Sergeant Zombo to your heart

and say o say Prismatic Spray.

My car waits, kind of growling in the rain.