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"Drop the flower down your blouse"
Joshua Beckman
Drop the flower down your blouse
and set everyone on the bar to watch.
The still petal—the red ink—I wait here too.
The sweet storm knocks my boat around.
The snowy air. In our new upward spiral of time
it floats. All guessing gone sour, the golden age
of staring done. We do it over and over.
That one could put their smarts in such silly
articles—thoughtful, articulate, and perfectly kept.
Death to endurance and linen and that book
is a dumb block I'll lay my head on and each
miscarriage of justice—just salt—inside us
slowing us down—and then as you are coming to be
done, the guests, their gin and safety from the snow.
If for nothing else this—heat and fat and bodily
comfort. Elsewhere, as in her apartment, the dreamers
and the dressers unite in their dances,
the attractive neighbors on top of counters.
Customer meet the mirror, mirror meet the customer,
but before the dark meaninglessness of things
continues, let me cry this out of my system.
Lovely pill, one more time down my throat you will go,
and before long I'll be home—half real with people
on my tv. Swallow. Clean up. Return. And if I
keep doing it, that's what we call my life.