Edgewood Hotel

Confuse yourself with books, until nothing's left of you,
then throw yourself into a shallow pool.
There will be a girl waiting, there will be a wine
improving, and a fish to be fried in the muck
near the bottom. There will be a girl waiting.
And the wine moving gently for years in the muck
near the bottom, brushed by the fish as yet unfried,
meant for the hands that now recline
in the sun at the crumbling circular edge.

Read books in a sun-lashed room with draped pianos
until there's nothing left of you, until you bathe your friends
to kiss them cleanly, and move the mailbox into the hall
to bring the mailman closer. The hosts divide the house
and the parties get hotter and smaller. The counters
are covered with fresh-sliced onions, and oven fans
keep them moist but the chef is off somewhere flirting.
The customers about to be hurt unaware at their tables,
the waitresses wringing out tears in meathooked freezers.

And a lonely chef, done with the men and the gentle
ladies, asleep in a long final kitchen
with a small television, snoring towards death
while short-lived ferns pulse
lightly in the trash dump on the plunging hill
where the cooks threw their leftovers
when all the buffets ran out
and noodles clung briefly to birches.