Why do couples always appear tired together at parties?
Was the process of finding each other so exhausting
that they now need to take a long rest?
Or are they worn out from the effort of pretending
to be interested in anything other than each other?
Being charming with strangers seems quite pointless
at this point. It is draining maintaining
this front: She’s hardly there at all.
She sits on his lap, yawning.
She feels sorry for you
because you can’t have her,
and she distrusts you
because your hungers are unaccounted for;
while he seems distant but content,
happy with his choice.
Holding her hand signifies his priority,
and it will remain held as they drive home,
their reserves finally unflowing,
giving voice to sympathy
for those unfortunates
who do not have
what they have.
Couples At Parties
Springtime in an American Town
Why is it that I only ever notice my gut in motel room mirrors?
Perhaps obesity is contagious in these parts,
the natural result of pride and fear.
And why am I not noticed here?
Barely branded by sidelong glances
in one dead-eyed town after another
by a populace whose chief talent lies in the ability
to instantly distrust anything they don’t understand.
The feeling is mutual.
I have passed like a ghost through your cities,
scavenging for scraps of the past.
I have rambled, ambled, bled your cities dry,
arriving at the end of the trail of trash,
weighed down on the great white way,
on tired streets of dead blood-red brick.
And I have found the old buildings,
in all their purity, perfectly preserved, in paint
on the sides of new buildings
in towns like silences
that need not be filled.
And there is nothing left anywhere
that hasn’t been turned over and undermined
by overawareness.
For in this tarnished day and age
the luster of everything must be restored
and celebrated with meat and sugar,
and a soundtrack of feigned emotion.
John Tottenham 