Pith & Vinegar: "Heart's Desire"

The centerpiece of Workers' Comp. was a longer poem for a girl I'd met while working in San Francisco's downtown. Before I knew her name I called her the "stoop brooder," because that's how I first saw her -- sitting outside where she worked, brooding and smoking -- and how I often saw her many times after that, before starting to talk to her. I found out she was also from the Midwest (Wisconsin) and had had a tough upbringing, which lead her to run away from home at a young age.

As we became friendlier, she felt comfortable enough to ask me to help her move. I didn't have a car, so I asked a friend at the time if I could borrow his. The move itself didn't take long -- she didn't have much in the way of material possessions -- and since I didn't have to return the car for several more hours I suggested we get out of town and just drive. Somehow we made it to the titular beach, and while details have been sieved through a poetic filter everything here happened pretty much as described.

Was this a romance? No. I felt an attraction to Meg but it was more of a brotherly thing; she was over ten years younger than me, and had a combination of strength and fragility that made me want to protect more than woo her.

I like this poem very much. It has never appeared in print aside from the chapbook and often winds up selected for longer or more retrospective readings.

Heart's Desire
for Meg Lewis, wherefore art thou...

On this parched beach
we have come to
lie corpses of starfish,
arms outstretched
in a desperate plea
for belonging.

Perhaps it’s something
about muddling forward
that drew them here
toward land, some
need to evolve

we with our two-legged
taken-for-grantedness
can’t or won’t understand,
or have forgotten.

◊ ◊ ◊

Blunt stones
poke through cold sand
like baby teeth;
broken seashells
bob in the thirsty surf.

In your battered black
leather jacket and ripped
jeans you are a pale angel,
an underage,
Botticellian refugee
booted out of heaven
for smoking.

◊ ◊ ◊

Company picnickers
play volleyball, bonding
over flat beers
and barbecues. One
of them―wheelchair-
bound―stares out
at listless waves

lapping the low-tide
shoreline, remembering
swimming lessons
he took as a kid,
methodical laps
in roped lanes
of the YMCA pool.

◊ ◊ ◊

Near the parking lot
someone has chained
a black, slobbering
dog to a sign scolding
NO PETS ALLOWED
ON THE BEACH!
tail wagging
maniacally; edging

toward our borrowed car,
past trash cans full
of ketchup and mustard-
smeared paper plates,
plastic forks and spoons,
that dog’s lonely

hysteria counter-
points the complacency
of those beach-bound
humans, one of whom
abandoned him here
to a funless
afternoon, choking for love

at the end of a leash.
Then I consider
this place and its name―
invocation of all
the unattainables
of mutt or man,
too truthfully unjust
for the frivolity
of a lazy
Sunday spin.

◊ ◊ ◊

Driving back
to the city,
the road curves
through mountain dells
and tucked-away towns;
in one such town
you lurch against the seat-
belt, like a child

against her mother’s arm,
craning your head
toward
a plain
but hopeful house,
its white picket
fence clutching
bunches of wisteria
like a bridal bouquet.
“Look,” you cry, pointing,

“isn’t it beautiful?”
In the rear view
mirror, flowers flash
in a cloud of purple-green
fire.
Later you light
another cigarette,
exhaling smoke
out the open window.

As I slow down, handing
the toll guard two
dollar bills
in the long-shadowed
late day, you smile
sleepily; tying your hair
back,
speckles
of sand glitter in it
like stars in the night
sky. Behind
us, an anxious horn
honks emphatically.

◊ ◊ ◊

Pulling up
to the curb
outside your Tenderloin
apartment, double-
parking, waiting
for you with your new
set of old keys

to set foot safely
inside the front door,
you turn then,
waving goodbye,

as a pair of tattooed
prostitutes standing

nearby simul-
taneously spit.