How To Have Your Day & Eat It Too

I woke up knowing this was mine! – no,
not the day – which anyway belongs
as far as I can tell to nobody – but rather
the sensation that whatever I decided,
this grand moment would persist –
and anywhere I was would offer just as fully

its resplendent kiss as anywhere I'd be:
and so I didn’t go to any lengths to see
the Queen or start a revolution or have sex
with seven nymphomaniacs at noon
beneath the dome of City Hall – in fact
I’d have to say that all I did was ride

a subway train uptown to feed a cat,
and ride it home again – perambulate up
Seventh Avenue to meet some friends
in Chelsea, chat and eat some breakfast –
after which I still did not have any wish
to utterly upend my life – no urge for

untoward strife: no yen to fight bare-fisted
in the street or sneak myself into a boudoir
to eat oysters with a courtesan who’d rub
my feet: I find myself in the sweet middle
of a Saturday, the light is pearly late-
May gray, the television glows and brays

in all its soft chaotic ways, I’ve got
a freshly laundered T-shirt on, I sport
a buzzed haircut and just-trimmed beard,
and I have got the whole thing spinning
as if everything that I revere were near
and everything I feared had disappeared.


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