STEP ONE

I CAN’T RESIST a maple bar.

With grease that clings more ardently
to my lips and mouth and throat
than last Saturday’s cigar;
And a sugar-high hangover
that commits Bourbon or rye
to mere child’s play.

Wrapped in stained wax paper,
slipped inside a streaked brown bag;
Consumed while driving,
with one in the break room,
one in the top drawer,
and willing suppliers on oft-frequented corners.

Two a day, minimum,
maybe three.
Perhaps more.
Who counts?


WHEN LUCID, I recall:
Thirty-five cents once bought a hit,
now it’s a buck and a quarter –
though cheaper by the dozen.


MY DENTIST knows,
- my teeth prompt envious glances from local derelicts
huddled in doorways -
as does my doctor,
and my tailor.
Though I don’t know they know,
or if they know, how they know.

An off-handed sweep brushes icing off my Chinos.
A private rinse in the public fountain down the hall:
Careful, always careful, to cloister, to hide.

Innards in knots at times,
wind has been breached in meetings I’ve chaired –
once emptying a small room of colleagues.

But my work is never affected.
Never.


NOW, what was step two?


© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press