aubade
 
 
on the table
old paperback
of first Leonard
Cohen poetry book
&
a half-full
carton of
orange juice
 
you asleep on the floor
 
Frank O'Hara
gives me
to speak of
these things
art     too much alcohol
love
 
Frank O'Hara drank a lot too
& it didn't kill him
(a dune buggy did)
 
typing in a roomful of friends
he had fun
 
but who's going to remember    if we
don't
 
"B.O. really means
Black Out"
"& it stinks"
 
today you're driving toward his city
in early fall
after painting my arms with
watercolor love bites
to last a few weeks
 
in the stubble hungover afternoon
I recounted what happened to us
just hours before
usually I only do that in poems



-- Gwynne Garfinkle


An earlier version of this poem appeared in papertiger #1, and a spoken word version appears on Adam Marsland's CD You Don't Know Me (Karma Frog).