The brownie is just an excuse.
Chocolate drizzling over
the scent of freedom,
the elaborate study required of
the menu,
framed against the evening bay.
My legs are bare and ripe for insects,
but the heart hides its sachharine
under soft-cottoned blue.
I’m anxiously pacing my stillness.
Gathering rope to lasso time.
And the nuts they crumble grudgingly,
permitting me a moment longer.
I never miss Bollywood, but the stellar MS
reminds me to be thankful
B-pop is days away.
A spoon waits placidly.
While someone on a bus inhales
sandalwood and fuel fumes
so he may spray-paint his heart
for me.
Hedges nod affably.
The waiters less so.
Oh look, here’s the bill
but a triangle of sweetness
my rich, brittle excuse,
it watches as my fingers
don’t stop.
A bald baby clutches mud
to the growling of her
father and the roar of surf.
It might take a blue-cottoned
girl with a green croc notebook
to tell him
that often,
it’s all we’re left with.
There approaches the
waiter again.
“One chocolate brownie,”
I say,
my first order for the evening.
Vox populi