Shenanigans '08


Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum, ensconced
with a U of Arts semi-disciple, sees me
bust in with a brazen brunette, who
resembles me so closely she might
be my niece; we sit, begin to fight;
she decides she wants red wine;
Mary H is standing across Pine
Street, spying on us; we leave; Mary
follows us; Jeremy, as is his wont, can
only pine for the poems he wrote in
the 90s at Villanova, that he meant
something then; we get the red wine;
Mary positions herself caddy-corner
the liquor store window; we walk past—

the center-of-the-center overlords, not
hung out to dry here, watch, bemused, as
Julia enacts her kamikaze Salome
burlesque, & know that Mary, not wholly
not a rug, has fallen hard for Julia
too, & that Julia can't not self-combust
about keeping means to escape handy
at all times. Julia's no rug at all. I'm
here, getting laid by my student not to
be outrageous, but for love. The semester's
over anyway. And I've got a lot to learn
about where I belong in the world. So, we
exit the liquor store, a poem hangs in the
air, waiting to be written, like linoleum.