A Side by Side Comparison of Burlesque and Poetry

Either everything matters, or nothing does. I believe that everything matters. I'm working through a knot of feelings about my creative life, so I came up with this list of notes about two art forms that I love. One is new to me (I made my debut last Wednesday), the other isn't (I made my debut in Kindergarten).

Playing Piano Alone on a Saturday Night

You don't forget any language
you learn as a child. Sostenuto.

Transitioning from note to note
there is no intervening silence.
Legato. I'm no mathematician,
but I feel the music, remember
passages that filled me with sadness
like a battle of seawater when I was fourteen,
find them again in Clementi and Chopin.
Light fingers. Remember.

No intervening silence. Legato.
My father now on a line parallel to mine

I hold my breath
to strike the chord.

Privilege

At the end of a fancy restaurant dinner
I like the sugar cubes that come with tea service.
I dip them into the tea, and watch the efficiency
of liquid wick into the grains, then I place
the saturated cube on my tongue.
Happiness.

Before that, the wine tasted like new envelopes,
then popcorn. The little spoon that supported the work
of the amuse-bouche was so lush with density
I wanted to eat it instead.

I know I don't belong here in this repurposed bank,
sitting among people who have more than a poet's
income. Well, right now we are all enjoying the same
kind of spoon. Ha! Take that! Oh, the bill.

At home my favorite spoon is a spork, it's good enough,
and at my mother's house, I like to use the one
with an elephant etched onto its handle.

I can make that cider with thyme in it
that we both enjoyed so much,
but I won't. I'll make chicken marsala,
or meatloaf, and we'll watch a movie
while sitting on the sofa. Our tablecloths
and their fashionable grease stains
folded into one another
will remain in the cabinet.
Happiness.