Somebody Stop Me

This is the sort of poem it's hard not to write,
I guess because it gets the endorphins going
and you have the brief illusion that others
will be as tickled as you are while the words
do their thing.

WHY IS THAT?

"Why?" Now there's a question.
Why this cancer of the spleen,
this palmetto branch where the white moths hover,
these particular bangs and scrapes
from the recycling collectors?

Why this romance of Tim's with the albino girl,
why that particular Brenda of the pink eyelashes
among all the albino girls he might have chosen,
and why, come to think of it,
why the Albigensian Crusade?

Plus why is a dawn song called
an "Alba" in Spain
but an "Aubade" in France
when it's just a question of a few miles between,
and what to do about that?

And what to do
with the pressure within Tim
to get so far into shy Brenda
that he'd reach the chocolates and reds
she hides beneath her whiteness.

Or what to do
about my own distaste for Wonder Bread
(still thinking whiteness)
as if this made me
somehow special?

Just asking.

Brenda, on the other hand
has put up with one hell of a lot
during her 23 years on earth,
and is hoping she and Tim
might have conversations, like in the movies,

pert and sassy: he'll do Hugh Grant
and she'll reply in Monica -- no,
belay that, what was I thinking?
Reply as Jennifer, as Jay-Lo, whoever,
but Monica's no proper name

for a romantic stand-by.
Brenda would never fantasize herself
as a Monica, believe me,
and -- here my questioning goes a bit deeper --
what do Brenda and Monica share?

The two girls, what do they have in common?
Lust, of course, and an instinct for a nice profit,
also ecstasy while wandering the aisles
at Sur La Table, all those swish Espresso Machines,
the ceramic roosters, the little medallions

for placing round the neck of wine bottles,
telling them, in effect "You're white." "You're red."
And those gizmos measuring amounts of pasta,
this much for one, this much for two,
depending upon the number of guests to be fed.