for A & A
Whooptee fuckin’ do for you! she said,
this was their first cocktail party, a soiree
in their honor, drinking Grey Goose kumquat quests
and chanting Ferlinghetti’s “Constantly Risking Absurdity”
from the picnic table festooned with paper lanterns
and tiki torches. The guests sulked and slinked
in their sultriness, words slurred in the syrupy
sloops of fireflies and luna moths floating
their carnal syntax across bare shoulders
and breasts, men stripping down to vests, there's dancing
barefoot across the dewy grass -- someone
put on Sinatra so they're dancing -- and
when he said he needed to recite his swan song
they all sang "The Way You Look Tonight" with
Ol' Blue Eyes, they weren’t having any of it, no,
this is not how artists fade away, this
is not how cognitive theorists launch their careers,
there’s too much wisteria curlicued overhead,
she pleaded with every slender braceleted gal
swooning to the crooning she could corner:
Do you think I’m pretty? Do you think I’m smart?
And of course they nodded and danced, yes dear,
of course you are, you are!, kumquat quests spilling
over their hands and down their lovers’ spines
as they danced, cooling the humid sweat and
patience from their fingers, and now he was
holding court by the fountain of Aphrodite
riding a swan, he was telling them all about
the swan, the song, and she, spying him, found him
so luscious, so utterly divine, and there,
among those flush-fleshed calypso dipsos,
she bounced up to the picnic table proclaiming
her right to holiness, to sing the Canticle
of Canticles!, and he, washing his hands in
Aphrodite’s spillage, shouted that he’d
never slurped oysters from their shells. The
lascivious couples slinked off into something
like a fistful of pixie stix poured down one’s throat
when looking at the stars, wax bottles of sugar
water one drinks to quaff their preternatural thirst,
licking the frosting off red velvet cupcakes,
whooptee fuckin do!, she shouted, Is this
all there is? Whooptee fuckin do for you! he sputtered.
This was not their swan song, they knew, but what did
they know? The night was fading and folks were
copulating in the neighbor's hottub, shagging
in the bearded iris, frolicking in the perfumed
French lilacs. They were left with the platter of
Cheez-Its and Triscuits, red grapes, cold asparagus tips,
potato chips and melted brie and the Eurythmics.
Standing there on the picnic table, under
the paper lanterns, they touched each other's lips
with their fingertips. Whooptee fuckin do for you!
baby, Whooptee fuckin do for you!
