POEMS

               Why my husband will eat Caesar Salad tonight
(for Nancy)

Today I eat my lunch alone sitting on a plastic stool
with my Ipad.

I used to come with Liz for In and Outings

but just now

I see on Facebook she will heretofore eschew

the siren call of burgers

and choose instead to

chew tofu, sip soy milk and shuffle about in felt slippers.

A Manohla Blahnik girl, she shocked me.

High heels after all, really do make your legs look better.

Even vegetarian legs.

Chomping into my cheeseburger I scroll down further.

What is this?  Meatophile friends and relatives

by the score are crossing over to the vegetable patch.

And all these vegan ladies (and Nancy, my nephew and Martin)

smile smugly from their profile pages

with that special virtuous vegetarian kind of glow that comes from crunching and munching reddish things, like carrots.

As someone said, “What's up Doc?” Don't they hear the Vegetables scream as they're pulled from the ground?

They look thin, these earnest faces;  how galling. And they post about their oddball smoothies.

"Try sweet potatoes and broccoli with non-fat yogurt"  

"Love our carrots spun with parsley in chicken broth”

Gaggaroony honey. I love you but not that much.

Instead I reach for ketchup and think of Ogden Nash - that clever boy.

He warns of course to "shake the bottle lest nothing comes, and

then a lot’ll!"

Shifting on the stool, my vision wavers  - the faces vaporize like contrails

the images blur and go all squiggly.

Beef blindness? Heart attack?

But no….I see it's just Animal burger juice dripping on my iPad screen and

slowly spreading. I swipe at it and the irritated iPad flashes this, then that.   

The vegans vanish....every rosy, earnest, thin, vegetarian face

disappears under a great greasy smear.

I stand up, stifling first one meaty burp, then two, and click

the iPad off. 

Driving away, my appetite sated

the In and Out sign

gets smaller and smaller

in the rear view mirror.

And I decide we'll be having a Caesar Salad for dinner tonight.

8/15/13

My Otolaryngologist

(pronounced oh/toe/lair/in/goll/oh/jist)

My Otolaryngologist

was once my ENT

Why they gave the name this twist?

A mystery to me.

8/16/13