Discourse on Love

Girl, the worst day of my life was the day

we saw Jack Spicer get mauled to death

by escaped tigers at Candlestick Park

which they closed down forever, buried

in salt and renamed Ate which they shudder at

over in center field at the AT&T stadium.

I threw a bobblehead of Ryan Braun at the beast

which bounced off uselessly and lay on the turf.

Boy, the wind levels at AT&T Park are half

those at Candlestick, thanks to the quick thinking

of engineers from UC Davis. Kantorowicz was an engineer

too, you know. He invented a ghost of Algebal

which beat up Hitler and lived a celibate life.

Or he tried to beat up Hitler.

Or he couldn’t open doors with his claw hands.

Girl, I think I saw a movie about that.

Did one of them have a special gun

that could shoot you into the future,

so you just pop back out where you were

but your kids have goatees and your wife

is riding a jet-ski on Lake Champlain

without you?

Boy, why don’t you come on over,

help me translate Dante, Shakespeare,

and Baudelaire back out of German, where

they’ve gotten their feet tangled up and are calling

your name.

Girl, sounds good, I have no language

but am a gifted student of concepts.

You could say I never met one I didn’t like.

Even now, my hands trembling in joy—

being eaten by tigers in the baseball diamond of tomorrow.

COME FRIENDLY BOMB