burrito weather

i had a burrito once
on the sidewalk in echo park
the weather was warm, & the burrito
was as fresh as a strungout mouth.
that was la
where the homeless stand out.
yesterday a cool change came,
breaking a window
& raining. at the playreading
i peeled dead skin like invulnerability
from my heel,
rimbaud & verlaine argue a duckshaped
tureens brought on:
we laughed like roses
& stretched & were bored.
we ring for mexican takeaway,
summers been cancelled again,
like toothpaste
or yoghurt with skim-lies,
& while i wait for
you i pluck a guitar string.
i could go to the galleon
if its open
–i never know,
or whether the menus changed,
the least of my worries –
perhaps my lips ripple in the cold
my two doonas insufficient,
my body fat in the wrong place,
a bag of tomatoes &
no butter or bread,
or bag of corn-chips
like crude dried petals.
i wonder if your eyes
are cold & what theyve seen
tell me, ive forgotten,
the taste not the colour
of the food
in california i had
my first meal free.
it had a little, blue piece
of sponge in it.
–hollywood isnt the place for anything
i wanted except cookies of course.
there was too much mustard,
on the ham pide today,
maybe becausethepainter
made it & daytime repeats
–that i dont want to get hooked on –
predictable, sentimental, & wellacted,
kept me from reading his ambivalence-letters,
nerve has to be isolated before
it can do the fearful,
push the glowing buttons all the
while breathing through the nose.
last nights tremor, the glass shattered in
the stairwell swept up, the splashing cars,
& the rusty bike chain
that creaks like the pedals & the
dialogue in the someone famous story.
like the possibility of love
made a joke,
a piercings-tshirt why remember that
you werent a desperate activist.
your pathetic lakeside revenge,
in their circling cars
& in the perfect night,
the sushi-sausages disappear,
while you go for walks,
but now – unofficially anywayits win, win, winter!
even though were below the equator.

Originally published in open sesame by Giramondo Publishing.