Pure Love
Tony Hoagland
Richard calls me to renew our friendship
the week before he is going to ask a favor.
I am fond of him because my sense of ethical superiority
sends a little rivulet of pleasure backwards into my interior
and waters some of the flowers I have hidden there.
Our friend Camilla is another story— when she unleashes the five percent of her attention
not constantly dedicated to the glamorous fiction of herself
and turns it like the sun in your direction,
she makes you feel like a potted plant
under a tropical grow-light the size of Hollywood.
She is the Queen of Sheba, and I love her
but also I am always watching the fine muscles of her face
to see how I am doing.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch,
said my mother, who often called me her little parasite.
I touch you with my crushed fingers and you
smile at me with your discolored teeth,
but it’s more troubling than that.
It’s like the miracle of human taste buds
getting their workout on trashy breakfast cereal.
Is it even right to speak of the heart?
Yesterday I felt so strongly
that I wanted to be away from here forever.
Today I am so utterly involved, I cannot move an inch.
If you want pure love, baby, you came to the wrong planet.
