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Wine Gnats

A bottle of kee-yan-tee
(I love Hannibal Lecter’s inflection
to knees-glued-together
Agent Starling
in my desert island favorite
Silence of the Lambs)
from the neighborhood
wine store to go
with the angel hair
and jar sauce
and I’m thinking about
the wine gnats
hovering over the bag of Ripple
being sampled by Bukowski's
alter ego Henry Chinaski
played by Matt Dillon
in Factotum
a three-star on IFC
that made me rethink
my criteria for evaluating films.
But it was two AM I tell myself -
the spin doctor has entered
the building, oh joy -
which didn’t stop me
from drawing a bath
with Ashbery
and stemmed glass
to comb the beach
for a peach of a word
to jumpstart my pencil
amidst the steam.
It usually works
well enough to transport
the wrinkled yellow pad
to the keyboard
for transcription
with editing
and commentary
(Did I write that?).
For 25 years I’ve slept
on a futon
and feel compelled to read
a paragraph
a line
a word
before clicking off the bulb.
There are mornings
when the light smiles
into the apartment
and my toys beckon
and prying to disembark
is next to impossible.
I putter
turning green
at the thought of friends
who have crossed over
into the twilight zone
of retirement
that for one or more
of the assembled reasons
as well as those
which for whatever reason
remain undisclosed
I convince myself I cannot do
just yet.
On those days
all roads lead to work.
There are no detours.
No walking away.
No hugging the far wall
bordering the lawn
before making a mad dash
for the gate.
No vehicle
idling in the alley
waiting
to take me
(and companion)
to the airport
for that long-awaited trip
abroad.