No Help for That | Jackie Clark

Before I leave your place, you tell
me that our time together is precious,
which makes me barely able to keep down
the hard-boiled eggs we watched float
to the surface just moments ago. How
embarrassing, that this word should be
the result of my pants hanging off the lamp
last night. I mean, it’s not that I’m not
sentimental but really one could go out
to the corner anytime of day & count
the cars that go by, nodding to each little
face behind the electric-powered glass
& that could be considered a moment.
Who gets to measure these moments
anyway? No one should be asked to handle
Metro so early, or this morning, Pam
Anderson without botox. I still get a kick
out of buying fruit on the corner & I’m sure
that even the man with the fruit knows
that precious is a quaint way of making
something untouchable. Imagine if he spent
the entire day trying to sell precious asparagus,
how ridiculous that would sound.