The Old Desk

I keep beer out on the covered front porch.
It’s winter in Northwest Illinois
and the relentless cold makes for great
refrigeration. My wife hides my beer
behind an old school desk she bought
at an auction; she says
she doesn’t want it to be
the first thing people see
when they visit. I laugh and tell her
her worries are cute and that somebody,
(not me) ought to be concerned. It’s possible
to derive some comfort from knowing
all your paranoia is justified. Our neighbor
notices when I take walks, asks me
when I see him at the post office
if I’m looking for work, and he pays attention
to whether we use our car, or when we leave
the garage door open. I can tell in people’s faces
when I see them on the street, or at the (only) bar
they’re trying to decide if I’m “ok” enough;
I want to tell them
the beer on my porch is probably
their best indicator, though most of them
will never come close enough to notice.

When she brought the desk home,
she (proudly) informed me
she only paid 50 cents. (She said)
It was too good a deal to pass on
and besides (she insisted) she was thinking
of me. It would be cute upstairs, where I write;
It could sit in the corner and I could use it
to put books on. But the desk
has done its duty; the seat
is smooth and splinter free –
worn by countless student asses,
made sore by the wood
and by the hours spent
learning cursive and reading
from old primers and struggling
with long division. The wrought iron legs
are rusted from years of exposure
through creaky floor boards and clapboard windows,
wet boots, and the dry heat
of a coal or wood burning stove. The desk top is
splinter and graffiti free, and has a hole
in the right hand corner for a bottle
of fountain pen ink. When I carried the desk in
from the car, I left it on the porch
where the orange rocking chair was
that she left to sit in when she goes
out on the porch to smoke. The desk will hide
a couple of cases of beer and some liquor,
too. Every night when I lock the front door
I think about locking the screen door too; but then
(I remind myself) this is not a town
where people steal your beer;
it’s much more intoxicating
to take note of visitors and
driving habits and the frequency
with which I (do or don’t) leave the house

Flip Flops at the Art Museum

The arrhythmic sound of my feet
smacking against my flip flops
echoes in the grand halls
of the art museum. We’ve
lost one another, as usual,
taking in the frenetically organized
collections to suit our own likes.
You take pictures, while, in my mind,
I’m stealing the things I like
for the memory palace under construction
(that looks suspiciously like the
the library from graduate school)
so that I can enjoy them all later
in solitude.

Most everyone else
wanders in crowds
like they’re on tours
being told about how
this painter
murdered his lover
or how that sculptor
suicided herself
as a martyr for feminism.

People who can’t make art try
to turn themselves into
their favorite artist’s creation
though none would ever claim it: wear
just the right clothes and
modular eye glasses, strike the pose as
pseudo-Warholian artifacts
among the Abstract Expressionists. The
surrealists are confused. Everyone’s
a lesbian around the Georgia O’Keefes.

The guards eyeball me as I wander the galleries
free form. My flip flops echo loud,
announcing my movements
and helping drown out
the hollow talk of the investor-patrons
and amateur critics
who paint their faces (obsessively staying within the lines)
with expressions of self-satisfaction and
deep, deep loathing. They watch me, too, as I flop by
unaffiliated. They distrust my well-worn hat,
the smell of cheap beer,
and the stench of my last cigar.

In one of the installations
(a dark closest with tiny twinkling lights)
I run into to a couple of kids
taking advantage of the dark space
to giggle and grope. He’s hoping
for good locker room talk. She’s expecting
a cable TV inspired adult romance.
They kiss loudly. It’s sloppy. I push
by them and back into the main gallery
littered with classics and moderns
and one or two contemporaries
(i.e. alive and poor) whose work
is political enough
to be installed near Rothko
and Chuck Close.

She finds me in front of the de Kooning
(not his best.) I hear her approaching. I know
it’s her by the sound of her flip flops. She’s
smiling and hugging her camera. Now
that there are two of us, the guards
have moved on. I hear the girl giggling, and
the echoes of well-fed conversations. I know
we’ll stop in the gift shop
on the way out,
and it will be that much longer
before I can smoke
or get something to drink.