Tell them you ate three kinds of dark
Chocolate. Tell them your favorite contained
Sea salt and toffee and cost you $16 dollars
To snatch from the snack basket at the hotel.
Tell them how you let the squares melt on your tongue
While sitting next to a heavy set man breathing
Heavy on a train after 1a.m. while two sisters drank
Pepsi and made small talk so quiet and easy
You couldn’t begrudge them for keeping you
Awake. Tell them you took the subway at 2am
Then walked home alone at the skunk hour
And that you realized all the drunks
Were more afraid of you and that the grinding wheels
Of your pink suitcase may as well have been tanks
Rolling through. Tell them how you went to a wedding
Alone and that your whole family was there.
Tell them how the bride cried through the ceremony,
How she cried right through her silk gown
And that she washed the hall with her tears,
And tell them that she was the most honest bride
You have ever seen, ruining her makeup as sail boats
Lazed by in the harbor. When they ask about your work,
How it’s going, tell them a person needs to lie
Around a lot in order to remain sane. Tell them this,
And then ask them a question or two that will slip
Through the worm hole in their gut and poke
A pinky through to see if the answer is true.