Notes On a Good Time

Notes On A Good Time.

I think about my life at the Chicken Dorado
Or the California Donuts.
I spend a lot of time in L-Malls
In east Hollywood these days.
I even drink in one,
Imagining my life
As something gritty and essential-
Living in the open street with the
Crazies and the workingman,
And myself switching between them.

Later, coming home
I smile at my neighbor brushing past
On the stairs
As she gathers me up under one arm
Uncorking the wine with her teeth
And demanding head

Sometimes I stand at the corner
Under the signal box
And watch the young women
Coming out of the free clinic
And sometimes, from my post
In the laundry I can see under
The desk next door where they sit
And wait in rows,
Their brown knees lined up under
Unsuspecting Buddhas

There I hide within the harsh light,
Next to spotless folding tables
And a chorus line of blinking centrifuges
Lavishing the woman attendant
With her broom,
Who smiles back under Russian bangs,
Her crooked fingers curled
To the wood handle,
Her dream of freedom,
Lifting lids and finding coins
With strange faces.

These young green-card girls,
Children of their mothers,
Daughters of roofers and janitors,
Men who deal mostly with the tides,
I watch them swell and waddle on wide feet
Their fertile smiles recalling rows of corn.

I have found there are many quick lessons
In humility between the awning of the Cigarette Depot
And the Thai Massage if you are willing.

The L-Mall is solitude defined,
Luxury without,
Availability marred,
Like a transvestite prostitute
At four a.m.
All the parts are there
Except for a few loose bricks,
Or some etched graffiti in the tinted glass.
Somewhere you suspect a bit of rusted wire
Is responsible for holding it all together.
And you have to wonder at that,
At what separates and binds us
So remedially.