Change of Fortune

    Bonked off my bike by a snowbird from Maine
    brought me thirty grand of windfall fortune
    that came, after the lawyers took their take
    and the doctors with their sterile torture.

    Alive and lucky, it was just a long headache.
    Then, a sudden interest in my future
    led to a series of meetings and handshakes
    with your average corporate baby boomers.

    As in a dream vacation in Las Vegas,
    where the pit boss takes you into the fold
    of back rooms, secrets, and one-way glass,
    you see – as chump change – your new-found bankroll.

    A common Joe in the eyes of the bank,
    you discover, once more, the wealth of poems.


    An Excellent Meal After Unprotected Sex

    Were you to have been conceived yesterday afternoon,
    I would like you to know, my daughter or son,
    that your first nourishment was duck à l'orange
    served to a table of friends Howard, Katrina, your mother and I,
    by a waiter named Roland and prepared to perfection by Chef Omar Matmati
    in a restaurant named Fenix, in the city of its namesake.

    Were you to have been conceived yesterday as the light in the blinds faded,
    I would like you to know that the wind was brisk, and that your mother wore
    a brand new, red striped, purple shirt from Urban Outfitters
    with a wide, French collar and her hair in a tight bun flanked by two sparkling barrettes.

    Were you to have been conceived yesterday afternoon, I would like you to know
    that the first sparks of taste awakening in you were that of red Zinfandel
    glinting off the flint of a few pepper grains ground by our waiter
    over a plate of romaine lettuce lightly glazed in vinaigrette.

    Were you to have been conceived in that blush of light,
    I would like you to know that the first inklings of sight
    that may have come down to you were a brilliant red
    that your mother might have registered from across the table,
    remarking that the shade of Katrina's scarlet eyeglass frames perfectly matched her dress.

    Were you to have been conceived that afternoon, I'd like you to know
    that your first impulses to question might have been shaped
    by your mother prying Howard for his political bent
    and your first feelings of satisfaction might have come as well,
    as the question was carefully rewarded, like the opening of a salty shell,
    when Howard revealed only enough to imply a larger, more interesting whole
    than any of us would have guessed, given the evidence
    that a few years of acquaintance had deceptively sketched.

    Were you to have been conceived that afternoon, you might have have heard
    the first tones of excitement in Rene's voice as she talked about her work,
    a radio interview she held the night before with another in a long line
    of quirky characters, you may have intuited the power
    to extend a microphone forward in the world and extract truth,
    through plain, intended talk and words of conviction.

    Were you to have been conceived yesterday afternoon, I would like you to know
    that I wore an emerald green sweater and a pair of new, staggeringly expensive, brown Naot shoes
    which grew, over the course of the evening, remarkably comfortable.
    I would want you to know that I mentioned to the other guests,
    how earlier that day I attended a poetry workshop where I came away excited,
    delighted from finding the right poem to explicate a particular topic,
    and hopeful for the possibility of living an academic, writer's life.

    You, who may have been conceived that afternoon, February 3rd 2007, I would like you to know,
    your first hundred minutes in the world, your first glimpse of consciousness
    coincided with the most excellent meal of my recent memory
    and where, in those hours the restaurant staff allowed our conversation to unfold,
    you were given a leg up on the finer points of friendship,
    a head start on the art of smart, relaxed talk,
    there, with your mother and I, and two good friends,
    in the city where I learned to appreciate great eating.


    Yesterday's Geniuses

    One afternoon not long ago, I watched two men talking;
    for half an hour they monopolized an aisle at the Goodwill Store
    flanked on each side by typewriters and televisions, phonographs and radios
    with illustrated lightning and radar echoes around the names
    of models from the factories of Futuretron and Electro-Scope.

    I imagine these guys are retired research assistants and ham radio buffs:
    the neighbor with so many antennae on his roof
    you would think he leased his house from NASA;
    where late each evening the garage door windows cast an incandescent glow
    into a dark, where the chirping of crickets
    seemed almost like Morse code from halfway around...