if you’re happy in love
don’t read this
disregard it like bad advice
a boorish pickup line or too much junk mail
tumbling from your letter box
or maybe if you care a bit for language
you might find it useful at your next cocktail party
to spur the conversation perhaps
toward a common topic
once it has unwittingly turned to sports
or workplace gossip
when the men and women have broken into herds
a cocktail party taboo, an unmitigated disaster
as the men shotgun cans of beer in the garage
laughing, roughhousing, a raw, greasy bond between them
with no girls allowed pinned to the tree house
i give it to you for this reason —
this fat little poem with acne and crooked teeth
to unite your cocktail party
when david’s friend bobby
with the brando hair and muscle-car fixation
has lost interest in your friend mel
from the human resource department
who only came because bobby was coming
it is at that crucial nexus in the evening
where the two universes split like atoms
into opposing areas of science
that you can pull this poem out from under the sofa cushion
to lay it on the floor like a mat with coloured dots
now tell bobby and melanie to first step on the green
dot with their right hand and left leg
on the yellow dot and so on.
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