"Love Minus Zero" Was On the Radio
by John Kendall Hawkins
.
Confucian reigns and Russian dolls are everywhere
one thing leads to another, and BAM
there she is: the one you left behind in the yore
a cleaning lady now for The Man, mostly laundry
and we sit there at a picnic table along the Donet
and catch up, her words undulating and monotonous
like our old promises to be true, the mellifluity gone
I tell her about some f*ck knuckle I had to crack
the night before; she regales me with the times we had
at the State department freezing their assets off -- snow jobs --
and you in my pantry checking out my canned goods
and when we made love, jets screaming overhead
we tickled each other's rusty tumblers,
our so-called tender mercies stubborn as a Sunday
crossword held back by some archaic usage of time
and when the ordnance fell, the terror whistles
melded with our moans, Reilly: Ace of Spies
and Mata Hari: Codename "Harlot" in love again
and then the gooves were afoot, the clown chased from office
we didn't bother this time quipping "Dover Beach"
the phone rang to say Shanghai was gone, Moscow by dawn
soon the ICBM silos back home would be niche market BnBs
we copied that and pulled up each other's drawers
then she gives me the look I knew well
and stabbed me with a poison pen
I said amen, amen, amen, amen; she sashayed away
as I faded to a John Philips Souza number that featured tubas
