distant countries (for diane di prima)

missing so often the simplicity of kitchening in my old studio apartment with its 3 forks 4 spoons and 2 obligatory butter knives (not part of the original scavenged goodwill set) and the exactly 5-of-each chipped grandma dishes (from back when mexico was where polite rich folks went for flatware knicknacks kicksn’thrills) whose numbers dwindled as my grudging warp-speed washes sent them smithereening to the concrete floor.

things just were but also like i wanted them. i liked the light from the long alley to my jimmy stewart windows. in fall i slouched home through the rain with $4-worth of thriftstore prizes in a plastic sack like the ones they’re banning now. what i found: cowboy boots, red leather. a mulitta coffeedripper that just needed boiled water, no electric plug. a boon when of my two 1920’s kitchen sockets, one would never work. The other had the teensy fridge plugged into it. i lived in fear of what would happen to my condiments and beer when that one fritzed.

the rain rained flatly down the alley. i put on sun ra and did the dishes. my grandmother in arizona still goes down to mexico for valium and trinkets. i’m three years older, not a damn bit wise. all my dishes are in boxes. red leather boots in need of brand-new soles.

i love what i love. i miss the most the having nearly nothing so I fell in love with everything, a tourist starving in a foreign capital who writes home of the lights, if only
you could see these lights