Song of the Shisha

There have been missed opportunities, girls I should have approached at the train station,
Some leave it behind after college graduation,
Some men always found it too fruity, or thought it was necessary to be South-West Asian,
There have been losses & mistakes, times I should have agreed to take the bottom bunk,
Hear, my water pipe has saved me from the plantation,
And tho some women are lousy earthquakes, I will remain down on this carpet seated cross-legged like a Japanese monk.

Sacramento has come & gone, & lo, the stars are all the brighter for it,
Some men find it inappropriate in the workplace,
Come the eclipse, & hide behind the sun & moon, tell it to the whores at night court.
This universe is not quite at my level, I’d sell you saved coals, if it wasn’t simony,
My secret place uncovered at the ocean’s lowest phase.
Please don’t tell these ancient whores Nevada’s laws of patrimony.

A true man is still sucking at the nargileh’s proboscis,
And blowing rings into the room.
That man will be seated beside me, we are in the city’s last remaining smoking oasis,
The air is thick with aromatic incense, lit dimly with my oily abdomen’s glistening,
Tobacco has this power & so it is the third-hand fume,
My new wife is monologing about her quirky parents, & today I am listening.

There will be a new leader, & here a start for the closet library,
I am lightheaded but I can still walk home,
And curtain down on the creator’s theater, I will carry you to the quarry.
Fall far down into the crater, reach up & grasp this chance while I’m offering it,
Gilt in chrome, freshly polished from the second womb,
This hookah is for the present: smoke it like you mean it.